5 Days as a Sweeperette at Cedar Point
When hiding behind a tree to eat a frozen chocolate covered banana was nirvana
It was summer of 1996, and I had just finished my freshman year at Oberlin College in the obscure town of you guessed it- Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin was an extremely liberal and intellectual school for what I would call gifted students of liberal arts, and music. It was relatively small with just over 3500 students total, but large enough to feel you could retain anonymity. This tipping point of small meets not large drove a funky phenomenon I coined “The Oberlin Effect,” which was the guaranteed chance the one person you did NOT want to run into, you would.
Oberlin had coed showers in select dorms, underground sadistic parties, and an abundance of grungy prodigies. Be they concert pianists, opera singers, or just plain brilliant young minds — they all walked among you. I got accepted on a full academic scholarship, with a penchant for hardcore clarinet playing — but alas, I wasn’t admitted to the esteemed conservatory of music. Just the college.
My freshman year was memorable, but somehow I felt like an outsider among a crowd of intellectual hippies who lacked any shred of normalcy (or at least, what I had recognized as “normal,” in Delaware). The schoolwork was challenging. There were no ‘easy’ classes to be found. No matter what I took, it pushed the boundaries of my own thinking and ability to keep up with a grade of B or better. And for this, I was grateful. Yet, I still felt like an outsider.
Oberlin reeled me in with the slogan “Think one person can change the world? So do we.” That phrase, which arrived on a sleek black recruitment brochure at our mailbox in Hockessin, Delaware, hung in my mind like the promise of something ethereal and ultimately led me to choose this college over any other. This was pre-internet, when printed materials left a lasting impression.
Despite the wonderful academia and idyllic small setting, I craved something more large scale, with a bevy of normal clean-cut looking boys, a fraternity look if you will. While I did loathe the lemming-like qualities of fraternities (and sororities for that matter), it was a genre of human I could quickly recognize, which felt familiar. At Oberlin, the most normal guy I found was a division three football player named Jose Sanchez, who claimed his dad committed suicide, which he only shared with me in a heated moment of passion to try to get me to sleep with him. Turns out, he was dating a few other girls at the same time, and was completely full of shit. Did I sleep with him? Of course not! At that point, my virgin self was a gated community of one, and it was quite easy for me to brush off multiple attempts from mortal men assuming they knew the code to entry. Hell, I didn’t even know my own code of entry.
Earlier that spring, a Cedar Point amusement park recruitment brochure had floated into my orbit. Cedar Point was the largest amusement park in the country, and was just around the bend in Sandusky, Ohio. The brochure spoke of summer jobs to “live, work and play” with a community of college kids from across the country. You could live and work inside the park. In your spare time, you could ride the rides, and socialize with activities and recreation for the staff! This seemed like a dream, and the perfect escape for me to avoid going back home. I’d surely meet other intellectual twenty somethings, maybe have a romance, and if I was lucky, get to be the roller coaster girl! That seemed to be the top rung position, in my minds eye at the time. I pictured cute boys running the coaster alongside me, chewing gum as we winked at each other just before hitting the button for the next ride to take off. This was all part of the plan. In the application, I checked off roller coaster operator as my first choice.
It was Spring of 1996, and my freshman year at Oberlin had just concluded. Cedar Point had accepted my application! While I had no idea what awaited, I was definitely going. A fellow Oberlin student agreed to drop me off on his way home for the summer. It’s hard to recall exactly how that came together now, but my first pungent memory was walking up to the dorm, and seeing a table full of rough looking girls playing cards and smoking outside in the 180 degree weather. It was a shock to my system. Me, the straight A student, competitive clarinet player, greeting a table full of crude state college girls from low-brow schools in Ohio. Where were all the clean cut intellectuals? This could no doubt become quite a nightmare. What had I done???
My dorm room was inside the park, in a building where you could hear and see the roller coaster plunging just outside the rooms, which was wild. My roommate wasn’t there yet, so I set my things down and tried not to totally freak out about how horrifying the dorm and people seemed so far. Inside were white cement walls, and a shared bathroom down the hall. It was definitely a bit prison-like. When my roommate eventually showed, she was a born again Christian with bad skin, a little heavy set and very chatty. Blond. Very sweet. Harmless. But born again. I do believe in God. However, I do not enjoy those that push religion on others. So the whole exchange with her wasn’t my favorite, and I decided not to engage with her much further.
The next day I reported for duty. My fate? “Sweeperette.” True story. NOT the roller coaster girl dreams I had hoped for. How could this happen? Sweeperette. The crappiest job the park has to offer. The lowliest of low. The plankton of the amusement park fish tank. My uniform was a bright yellow set of overall shorts. I had a broom and dust bin, and my sole job was to sweep “Area C” of the park all day, every day. 6 days a week.
And so it went that first week. The one happy foggy memory I have was piling into the covered patio at night, where all the college kids met up to “party.” It was a series of long tables, and pitchers of beer and plastic beer cups. It was rowdy, and the bench seats were full of young, loud twenty-somethings. There was an older guy with blond hair who seemed half intelligent sitting across from me. Can’t even remember his name now, but he was cute, and told me he was off for the summer from law school. He worked the lemonade stand in another area of the park and said I should come visit him. That was around day three I met him. A beacon of lemonade stand light.
On my 4th or 5th day, it was scorching hot, and the job was miserable. I actually went off to sneak a frozen covered chocolate covered banana treat for myself, and proceeded to eat it by hiding behind a tree. Not long after that, as I swept, a 14 year old acne faced boy came up to me and said,
“Do you like this?” with a look of disbelief.
I laughed, and walked away, keeping my Cedar Point game face on. Meanwhile, a geyser of realization came up to the surface. No, I do not like this. The moment crystalized in time. No. I don’t like this. I hate it. I have to leave. There was not one more moment I could bear. I needed to leave. Immediately.
So, I walked over to Area C to tell the cut lemonade stand lawyer I’d be leaving, just so he wasn’t surprised. He was bummed, of course. It may have been worth staying just for that adventure — but likely not.
My mom arranged a flight, and I promptly told the employment office I was leaving the next day. It was a bit like leaving a cult. They tried to intimidate me into staying, saying I was breaking my contract, etc. The fact I’d already booked my flight gave me the confidence to stand my ground, and just keep repeating that I was leaving no matter what they told me. What could they say? I turned in my bright yellow overall uniform, and never looked back. And thank God. That summer of servitude was worse than any awaiting Delaware family dysfunction, and home was at least a hell I could navigate in a cool, air conditioned house. Minus the chocolate covered bananas, of course.
