HERE LIES.the Golden Nugget Mine Ride.

Post card from the Wildwood Historic Society

Everyone has their boardwalk favor-ites. As the wooden miles from the Crest to North Wildwood and back, unfolding under thousands of flip flops and keds and naked feet would attest, if only they could talk. That favorite pizza place (a debate never-ending), those got-to-play water balloon games, the best places for take home fudge. Seashore jewelry items, most of which will probably wind up broken, shoved thoughtlessly into junk drawers long after the vacation has ended, and those rides! No mere county fair Model T ’s for our boardwalk. These computer birthed behemoths of metal, steel and speed move you upside down and inside out and sling you into the stratosphere higher and faster every year. Marvels of today’s engineering world. But, when you look thru the magic mirror…Growing up on the island may have made some of us alittle blasé about the everyday wonderful things that surrounded us and enriched our unique lifestyle. However, there was one thing that could always shake up the most jaded year round kid; a trip to Our boardwalk. Especially on a t-shirt drippingwith -sweat midsummer’s night. It was every child’s fairytale come true. From the sixties through the seventies, it was as if the roman emperor Caligula touched down in a time travel machine and proclaimed the decadently outrageous Wildwoods and the ‘boards’ as the Disneyland down-the-shore. Depending on which direction you came from, when you reached the green cement in the middle of the boardwalk, where the eerily magical carousel was housed, you knew you where half way there. To the Pier that is.

Hunt’s Pier was where it was at. With the Whacky Shack and the Keystone Kops; the Mexican Hat ride and the Jungleland boat ride; and the Skua and the Log flume all holding court around his royal highness, the Flyer. And if that great wooden coaster was the King of the boards, then hands down the Golden Nugget Mine ride was its queen. From 12:00 noon, till 12:00 midnight, 7 days a week throughout the summer season, the Golden Nugget Mine ride churned out her chills and thrills to the first generation of baby boomers to hand over just 7 little red tickets to the ride attendant. In the height of summer hundreds of riders a day walked the corral lineup with its fiberglass horses and western gear.The Nugget was built in 1962 by John Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. Three stories high, with eight cars and a steel track snaking inside, it was a combination dark ride and roller coaster. The best of both worlds with a somewhat tacky Boot Hill meets the Munsters’ theme. To a ten year old what could be better! Cowboys and Monsters and a roller coaster all in one. Awesome! A Mackenzie tape player sound system provided five hair-raising prerecorded sounds one of which included a screaming woman. It had a cemetery, crashing barrels and flying vampire bats; spiders, a mad scientist, mechanical miners and a waterfall all while being transported thru the deepest of darkness. Whether you walked up from Montgomery Ave, or Pine, or from Cresse, once you were on that boardwalk, you always headed to Hunt’s pier, to the Nugget, regardless of the fact that you already rode it a hundred times before. To me, the Nugget will always be extra special because from Sept. 1964, till 1985, my uncle Lou was her second brake man. His initials, L.V. were carved into the lintel above the entrance. I guess, aside from its architect and engineers, no one knew her better at the time.

Every morning, during daily maintenance, he would find at least 10 to 20 dollars in cash or loose change, squashed cigarettes, broken eyeglasses, bunches of keys, and once even a switchblade. It made for quite the treasure hunt. Every night he and the other attendants would anticipate the crazy antics. Kids that jumped from one mine cart to another while in motion. The spider was once ripped down by an overly excited teenager. In 1963 a lifeguard working a second job accidentally hit the brakes on the first floor and a group of four plump people, who just happened to fall asleep, were tossed from the car. Luckily no one was hurt. One night, a hardcore motorcyclist insisted on taking his bike on the ride. Black lights were stolen on a regular basis. A drunk fella tried to run through the waterfall curtain, getting himself covered in grease from the tracks for his troubles. The countless lovebirds would be another story. Years later, in 1986, when the pier changed hands, most of the rides were dissembled and the stories stopped.These days the shuttered Nugget at the edge of the sand is still that forbidding, hulking mass of ‘rock’ and twisting tracks that you remember. What will they ever do with it? But the closer you get, your stomach has that same mixed up feeling it gets when you walk back into your second grade classroom where you swore the desks were so big, they practically swallowed your body. With each passing season the queen becomes smaller and sadly, almost inconsequential. Although, perhaps when you close your eyes, she will be there in full glory, alongside your best memories of stick ball and cellar forts and that strange green patch of cement that used to be right smack in the middle of the boardwalk.

Grace Zambardi, Author of “The Water Cage”, a coming of age love story set in the Wildwoods, available at Barnes and Noble and area bookstores, she is currently at work on her second novel, “The Lion under the Boardwalk”.
onlylyon@excite.com