All Aboard

While he is crass, I will not hesitate to admit that John Oliver is hilarious.  In addition to his “news” segments, his made-up church and his British accent, he has a segment on his show called “How is This Still a Thing?”  As I’m sure you immediately realized, there are so many things that could be featured.  Living in this small, mountain town has its perks, but it also has more than it’s fair share of things that make you wonder, “How is this still a thing?” 

           

One of my favorite things that fall into this category is Tweetsie Railroad, a very small theme park that centers on a steam engine in between Boone and Blowing Rock.  Don’t get me wrong; we proudly bought our season passes a few weeks ago after our first visit.   However, before this year, I had not been to Tweetsie since I was a small child and I can tell you that not one thing, from the rides to the plastic fake horses to the pink cowgirl hats for sale to the train rides, has changed in the twenty plus years between my visits.  Partly because of the lack of updates and partly because of the portrayals that are arguably not politically correct, I find myself wondering as soon as we enter the park, “How is this still a thing?”

That being said, right now, Amelia is Tweetsie’s biggest fan.  More than a few weeks ago, we went on a Sunday afternoon and she was immediately hooked.  It takes her a few minutes to warm up, especially if there’s a character in costume hanging out just inside the gate, but after that window, she’s full-blast.  Whenever she rides a ride, she puts on her most serious face and concentrates fully on whatever she’s doing; as soon as she exits the ride, she asks to do it all over again.  Right now, she’s too small to ride everything, but we love the cars, the carousel, the chair lift, and, as much as I hate to admit it, the Mouse Mine (which should be named the Cheese Mine, but that’s another story).

On our first trip to Tweetsie, we did ride the big train.  It’s a ride around the park and out into some of the space around it, complete with two short stops, where the “cowboys” (and sometimes “cowgirl”) perform a little show.  This show centers on fights, some with “Indians” and some with other “cowboys.”  You see now what I meant by not-politically correct portrayals.  While I don’t necessarily agree with this view of the “old west,” that’s not where I’m going with this today.  During these shows, the cowboys fight; they also fire guns and even a cannon at one point.  We did know this going in.  We sat at the front of the train and tried to prepare Amelia beforehand. 

Amelia adored the train.  She shouted “choo-choo” repeatedly as the train left the “town.”  She was bouncing on our laps and clapping her hands.  At the first stop, her opinion of it all changed.  The second they began to fight, she was nervous.  The gunshots put her over the edge.  She started by exclaiming that she didn’t like it and then progressed to loud wails, accompanied by shouts of “hitting is not nice!”  That became her mantra throughout the rest of the ride.  She didn’t stop saying, “hitting is not nice” until we got off of the train.  Even now, a few weeks later, she still says, “hitting is not nice on the train” every once in a while.  It was probably not my best decision, to let my twenty-three month old ride the train when I knew what was coming.  In her short life, this was genuinely the most fear I have ever seen her show.  I felt horrible.  I couldn’t shake it.  It was completely my fault; I put her in that situation.  On the other hand, I want her to try things.  Who knew that it would scare her so much?  And, obviously, it hasn’t changed her opinion of Tweetsie in general; we would be there every single day, if she had her way. Just like the Mouse Mine song though, one person can only take so much Tweetsie. 

Anyway, that experience got me thinking.  I realized that this was Amelia’s first experience with guns, even fake guns like they use in the show.  She has seen weapons in cartoons or other movies, but not guns.  Even when she’s seen weapons, mostly they haven’t been used to hurt other people.  She hasn’t seen many movies at all and none of them contained guns.  There were a few small boys in our train car and they each had cap guns with them.  They were vigorously firing them at the actors as they had their “fights.”  They were laughing and joking about shooting people.  I know the idea is that it’s all in fun, but that makes me sad.

I couldn’t help but wonder if that first encounter with a gun was partly why Amelia was so scared.  It was a complete unknown for her. Then, I found myself feeling a little sad that we only made it to twenty-three months before she did meet guns.  Along those same lines, I’m also sad that there are so many children who have many earlier experiences with guns than my Amelia.  Our society is inundated with violence.  I know we all know that.  Everything feels different, more personal, though, when you see it through the eyes of your child.  We teach our children that violence is not the answer, and yet all of our pop culture is full of it.  I’m guilty of patronizing movies and TV shows and books that have violence, so I know I could do more to fix the problem. 

All I know for sure is that I am not going to teach Amelia that it’s ok to treat other people poorly.  You may be rolling your eyes at me, and that’s your choice, but right now, Amelia can’t understand that they are pretending or that they’re all actually ok.  Honestly, I’m not sure that I’ll feel differently when she can understand that. 

Today, here we are again, mourning the loss of another person at the hands of a gun.  This happens entirely too often; and, as far as I’m concerned, once is too often.  We cannot stand by and allow this to happen.  This particular loss is, of course, not only a gun issue.  Until black lives do matter, obviously, all lives do not matter.  As I said before, I don’t have the answers, but we must make changes.   We must mourn, yes, but it cannot stop there.  Action must follow.