In Honky-Tonk Heaven on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

My favorite time at the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Beach Boardwalk is around 9 a.m., when they’re just cranking up the works--when the bright lights start blinking at the empty Fascination booth and the ghosts on the Giant Dipper take a free test ride. The ocean looks as foggy and uncertain as the day.

Only the beach bums and the boardwalk workers are up. At this hour, you can walk through the set and get a little taste of carny life from backstage before the throngs of fun-seekers complicate the picture.

By high noon, there’s a line at the ticket booth as consumers compare the value of an unlimited-rides bracelet and a bargain ticket pack. Daytime is family time. Lots of kids, lots of families from Turlock, lots of very large people. I must have seen a dozen people over 300 pounds. I think they feel welcome here.

A mother is the worst thing to be here. A mother is a prize holder, a cash giver, a naysayer when the money runs out. I stand there exhausted, holding a couple of stuffed pandas, some plastic dinosaurs (you can trade ‘em up for a panda if you win seven), a half-eaten wad of cotton candy and a rotting caramel apple, trying to find a free hand to wave at the ecstatic faces of my daughters as they flash by on the Octopus.

I want them to be here. I want them to experience centrifugal force, gravity and honky-tonk. Honky-tonk is an endangered species, our unique American cultural contribution made up of flashing red, white and blue bulbs that say “Fun.”

Mention the Santa Cruz boardwalk to anyone over 30 and they will start telling you about Coney Island or Asbury Park or Riverview Park or Playland-at-the-Beach. And you can still see wonder being etched in the memory of wide-eyed kids as they stare at the rides and the crowd and the food.

Where else can you eat a balanced meal of turquoise shaved ice, fried artichokes and deep-fried cheese-on-a-stick?

At night, the boardwalk becomes teen heaven. I lurk in the background, wanting my kids to see the lights and feel the excitement but afraid to turn my back on them for fear they’ll disappear like the flashing figures in the Haunted House.

So I find a corner bench where I can lurk in luxury. I stare at the sea of tan legs, moussed hair, dangling earrings, quadruple-pierced ears, Guess Jeans, Hard Rock Cafe L.A./San Francisco/London sweat shirts, Harvard sweat shirts, Stanford sweat shirts and laceless tennis shoes. I am lurking so hard I feel like a pervert.

Something is different at night, and it’s not just the darkness. There is a feeling of anything-can-happen that goes with adolescence. During the glaring daylight, you notice the little details that tell you if someone is suburban or inner-city. But at night, you can’t tell who these teen-agers are. It isn’t set. Anybody can buy a Stanford sweat shirt. A Capulet may yet love a Montague.

You look at a boy so strong and handsome and muscular, and it’s impossible to foresee how 30 years of drinking and smoking and marginal employment will take its toll.

You see a girl in tight miniskirt and heels, just dressed to kill, surrounded by girlfriends who hover like ladies in waiting. She has a glow, she knows how to flirt, she’s in her prime, and every man turns his head to pay homage to her charms.

Will they still love her tomorrow--when she’s a divorced mother of three with no visible means of support? For now, she’ll have fun, fun, fun ‘til her daddy takes her T-bird away.

At 11 o’clock, the rides start shutting down. The guy running the Video Storm gives everyone an extra free ride because the beautiful girl is on it. But even her gaiety and sparkle can’t change the facts. It’s night. The carnival is closing .

Only the stuffed gorilla still rides the Sky Lift. Only the kid with the broom still circles the carrousel. Only the old man with his memories reluctantly leaves his bench to find a place to sleep under the boardwalk.