One last coaster ride at Cedar Point with Dad: Cleveland Remembers Parenthood Ideas

One last coaster ride at Cedar Point with Dad: Cleveland Remembers

June 28, 2011 – 4:53 am

One last coaster ride at Cedar Point with Dad: Cleveland Remembers Karen Berridge’s father, Ronald Karagitz (third from left, in case you were wondering).

I have an abundance of great memories created at Cedar Point. It’s been a staple of my summer vacations since I was very, very young.

Since then, I’ve carried on this yearly pilgrimage with high school and college friends, and now have brought my own children every year since they could sit up.

My favorite memory is from one year ago, June 2010, when I came to Cedar Point with my father, mother, husband and children. We were there to celebrate my daughter’s sixth birthday, but the visit was very important to me for another reason.

I wanted my dad to experience the ultimate exhilaration of riding the Top Thrill Dragster. He had never ridden it before and it was important to me that he have that experience.

Sadly, several months earlier, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and there was a sense of urgency to fit things in. I knew my dad, being a roller coaster connoiseur himself, would agree with me that there is no ride like the Top Thrill Dragster, and there is no easy way to define the absolute quality of this ride. You have to ride it.

Needless to say, we rode it together, and he did agree that it was a ride like no other.

That same day, we rode our favorite roller coaster, the Millennium Force, four times in a row, because there was minimal wait in line that day because the park volume was low.

My dad was amazed at how my old daughter (who just turned six that day) rode this ride over and over again with us, showing no fear. I know he was proud of her.

Twenty-nine years earlier he was walking up the midway with another young girl, me, to take me on my very first roller coaster, the Blue Streak. I know he was proud of me on that day, too.

The day I rode Top Thrill Dragster with my dad back in June 2010 will have been the last time I visited Cedar Point with the man who taught me to fall in love with the exhiliration of riding roller coasters. Thanks to him, I will continue the tradition of taking my family year after year to enjoy those same thrills at Cedar Point.

– Karen Berridge, Michigan

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