The Wildcatter at Six Flags Over Texas Falls for the Final Time

Tuesday, October 2nd, was a sad day in my life. It was the day that the Wildcatter ride at Six Flags Over Texas was demolished. In the amusement park industry, you will not attract customers without bigger and better rides, especially roller coasters. Even though I understand the reasoning and will probably like the new roller coaster better than the Wildcatter ride, it still makes me sad to lose a piece of my childhood history.

This ride and I have a long history. It started twenty five years ago, when I was only eight. My family and I lived in Arlington, but we were only able to go to Six Flags once every summer. I knew they had opened this new ride called the Cliffhanger. Cliffhanger was right! I was scared to death of this ride. They said you would sit in a car that went straight up ten stories and then you would just drop. I couldn't believe it! Why didn't they just put you in an elevator shaft and push you down? At that time, it was the craziest ride that I had ever heard of. I knew that when my cousins and I went to Six Flags, we were going to ride it. I didn't want to, but there was no way my cousins were going to call me chicken! The line was very long and we had to wait for hours.

The whole time you are in line you are looking straight up at this thing from which you are preparing to plummet. This was before the world of extreme sports and people falling to the earth for the fun of it. For at least two hours we waited in line, during which I wavered from riding to not riding. If I would have had a flower, I would have been plucking the petals saying ride it, ride it not. That was an excruciating time for me! I was not only wavering in my courage, but I had my two cousins giving me a hard time, because they knew that I was scared to death. When we got to the front, I had decided I was going to do this. I had to prove to myself that I could. I got in that contraption, which looked a little like an elevator shaft, and strapped into the seat.