Thanks, Naomi. I love roller coasters, the other amusement rides, and Jacques Brel. It was also fun visiting the TV Peyton Place. I watch the movie every year on Labor Day and have memories of a friend showing me passages from the book when were pre-teens. It was the Rodney/Allison scene at the prom. We were hiding in a phone booth in a drugstore in Langley Park, MD. We'd taken the paperback off a rack and didn't want anyone to see us reading it.

Joe, I've ridden one of the old wooden roller coasters, the one in Long Beach, CA, that starts on the beach and loops out over the water. I was around ten, and my parents had taken me to see Disneyland—probably about two weeks after it opened. My father took me on the LB roller coaster, the first one I'd ever been on. We reached the top of the first "hill," and he said casually that I might want to hold on When the ride ended, he was missing three buttons from his shirt. Guess I did hold on.

Currently reading: Best American Mystery Stories edited by Lee Child and Otto Penzler. AARGH!