Word: rollerism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What: A double-racing wooden roller coaster with...
Sure, I'd been on roller coasters before, but never one like this: the Great American Eagle. It was bigger, faster, noisier, and above all scarier. It also presented a challenge of sorts. It required getting psyched...
After watching the Eagle careen around its mile-long track, I was definitely not psyched. So I decided on a plan for working my way up to the Mt. Everest of roller coasters--I would ride the park's lesser ones first. The name of the tiniest one should have been enough to turn me away. "Willard's Whizzer" whirled like the spin-dry cycle of a washing machine, and anything that goes in circles makes me sick. I rode it anyway...
...staggered away from the "Whizzer" and stumbled into the line for "The Demon." This ride seemed a more conventional roller coaster with a hill, a turn, a rise, a dip, none of which looked terribly menacing. But as the line snaked its way around a plaster mountain placed there for atmospheric effect, "The Demon's" devilish aspects revealed themselves. I had seen the tame initial drop; I had not seen the loop that towered over the fake mountain. My first inclination was to leave the line, but embarrassment is a powerful force. I stayed put. A few minutes later...
Though Wall Streeters voted for him in heavy numbers last November, their euphoria over Ronald Reagan was short-lived. Soon after Election Day, the Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks pierced 1,000 for the first time in four years. The widely watched indicator was then on a roller-coaster through the next several months, reaching 1,024, its highest close so far this year, on April 27. Slowly at first, but then with increasing momentum, doubts turned into downright disbelief...