September of 2017 marked 30 years since Mountain Park closed. Usually, memories fade over time. But all these decades later, the park is still as vivid to me as when I was there. I'm still assaulted by the sensory overload I experienced daily: the hissing blast of the Satellite jets, the sharp smell of the graphite and arcing electricity in the Dodgems, the music from the merry-go-round -- especially the music. Hearing any of the familiar tunes that used to play repeatedly on the band organ instantly transports me back into the old pavilion. I can still hear the voices of Roger Fortin, Jay Collins, Lucky, my father. I can hear the creaking of the metal as I would bring the Ferris wheel to a stop. I can hear the joyful screams of the children as I drove the train through the tunnel behind the mini-golf course, and the clacking of the ratchets on the lift as the Mountain Flyer train ascended its first hill. I can feel the dampness of the Towers when I would walk through them as a watchman in the deep darkness of a winter's night with nothing but a small flashlight to guide me. I can smell the old wood inside the Dinosaur Den. These sensations are so palpable, it's as if I still work there and am just on a brief vacation. I repeatedly have lucid dreams of the park in operation. Sometimes I'm walking along the midway, heading over to the next ride on my breakman's schedule. Sometimes there are new rides; sometimes the midway is slightly re-arranged. In one particularly realistic dream, Jay had re-opened the park and Roger was preparing the rides for their first day of operation in decades. I was wandering through Kiddieland and the joy I felt brought tears to my eyes. When I awoke, I was still convinced the park was reopening. It took a few minutes for the euphoria to wear off. These strange dreams go beyond nostalgia. I can be nostalgic for my childhood, a mythical simpler time when my responsibilities were few and my duties involved little more than playing outside. But this is more of a desperate desire for something dear that's been lost. I can't say that my life was any simpler when I worked at the park. I was in my 20s and struggling to make ends meet. My primary means of transportation was my bicycle, in any weather. I didn't associate with many of the other workers. They would throw parties every week on the reservoir road abutting the park, but I avoided them. I had a few friends, but I mostly kept to myself. So I don't particularly miss the camaraderie. I've wondered what it was about Mountain Park's passing that makes it such a loss. Maybe it's that I missed my calling. For all of the aggravations while working there (the often difficult guests, the brutally long hours, the low pay), it was the only place where I felt truly satisfied. It's not that I was always happy; that's a different and more temporary emotion. But while I was there, I deeply felt that there was no other place I would rather have been. I put up with the occasional irritations because Mountain Park felt like my park. While I ran the merry-go-round, I made sure that the floors were swept and that all the lights were working. When I ran the Satellite, I took pride in how I ran it, trying to simulate an actual takeoff and landing with the limited ride controls I was given. What I loved was seeing delight in the faces of the guests, whether children or adults. It gave me great satisfaction to think that I was able to make someone's day a little bit better at my park. I've never had another job that's given me that same kind of satisfaction. When I worked at Riverside Park for a year, I was hoping to recreate that feeling. But that didn't happen. For one thing, I felt no ownership of Riverside; it was much larger and more impersonal than Mountain Park. And it also had a different clientele. Mountain Park was a true family park, with guests of all ages; Riverside was a teen thrill park. Those guests didn't seem to care if a ride was swept, nor whether I worked hard to provide a great experience. It seemed like they were there to kill their boredom. But at Mountain Park, the guests seemed to be there to get away from their usually hectic lives. They weren't there to speed up; they came to slow down. And they came together as families. I often felt that Riverside was little more than a teenage day care center. I often think about starting my own Mountain Park when I retire, knowing full well that's completely unrealistic. It's not that the park wouldn't succeed; I think it would do quite well. It's just that I don't have millions of dollars at my disposal to launch such a venture. So instead I guess that desire manifests in dreams and vivid memories. Even though I can no longer physically walk through Mountain Park's midway, I'm glad I still can feel how much it changed my life.