If this was amusement, then I'm glad we stayed away from the Torture Park.

I had the day off on Friday. (Well, not so much "off" as "locked out." An unpaid day of vacation, so to speak. At my horrid job as contract attorney, Friday was Moving Day, as they're moving us from one warehouse where the air conditioner doesn't work especially well to another of about the same size - and cramming 50 percent more people in with us. But that's a tale for another time.)

One of the guys I work with has a part time job at the local amusement park (King's Dominion), doing training. (Funny how so many of us have part time jobs elsewhere. And yet - a tale for another time.) The good news is that, as an employee there, he gets a stack of complimentary tickets. So he invited a bunch of us to spend our mandatory day off riding roller coasters and whatnot.

Well, why not? Certainly, the cost was right. And it turns out that only one of our group had not yet been born the last time I went there, back in 1979.

A lot of things had changed since the last time I was there. Many, many new rides. A Water Park. Lots of movie-related things (not surprising, as the present owner is Paramount).

Probably the most important thing that has changed since my last visit? I discovered I'm not as fond of roller coasters as I once was.

Getting to the park, I realized that I wasn't interested in rides that turn me upside down, or in being suspended from something instead of riding in a car. If I look down between my feet and see ground way down there instead of floorboards, I'm not getting on it. And I really wasn't interested in 270 feet of free fall. (See photo above, taken with a telephoto lens - because you don't get that much detail with the naked eye.)

Fine. I could still ride traditional roller coasters, and did. Including the Rebel Yell, one which I recall riding the last time I was there and enjoying it. And I discovered to my horror that I no longer found being loosely strapped into a vehicle hurtling over a 100-foot high precipice down a 75- or 80-degree slope to be "fun."

Further experimentation revealed that other rides having the common thematic element of simulating dashing yourself against the ground from a great height and at a high rate of speed were also ones that I found to be somewhat less than entirely enjoyable.

Some rides were fun, to be sure, and the morning overcast kept the crowds down, so all in all, it was a pleasant way to spend the day. But I'm glad I had a complimentary ticket, instead of one I'd had to pay $40 or more for. (And the free ticket made it easier to put up with the other price gouging - $10 to park and $3.25 for a half-liter bottle of water, for instance.)

It might well be another 27 years before I go back.