Riding High Into the ‘Jingle Bells’ Season

Into a time warp we’ve wandered, leaving the mainland and stepping out across the old wooden pier. To Santa Monica we’ve come. That city by the bay.

Over here, a Ferris wheel. Over there, those little booths where teen lovers take pictures. It’s a paradise lost, this ancient pier. On a Friday night, we’ve found it again.

“Will you go on the rides?” the little girl asks me.

“Yeah, will you go?” says her friend Marisa.

“We’ll see,” I say.

Here on the Santa Monica Pier, they have that great Ferris wheel. To me, it’s better than any of California’s more renowned thrill rides. More majestic. And you can’t beat the view.

Up over the top you go in those big buckets, gasping sea air and studying the petticoat of white lights that runs up the Palisades to Malibu.

“First, let’s go on the Ferris wheel,” I tell the kids as we line up at the ticket window.

“No, not the Ferris wheel,” the little girl says.

“The Ferris wheel is too scary,” her friend says.

Apparently, they’re remembering “Mighty Joe Young,” that movie where the Ferris wheel falls on its side.

I assure them that such things rarely happen in real life. At the Santa Monica Pier, in fact, they’ve bolted down the Ferris wheel, just in case some huge movie monkey comes along.

“Look, a roller coaster!” the little girl screams.

“Let’s go on the roller coaster!” her friend says.

So we go on the roller coaster. And then the Sea Dragon, which is shaped like a big canoe and swings wildly as if on a rope, making you wonder about the welds and the fittings and what salt air does to such things.

It’s a nice ride. Like all great theme park attractions, G-forces pound and pull your intestines, suck on your eye sockets, toy with your soul. Your fingers death-grip the safety bar as blood rushes to your ears and nostrils.

Usually, you’d have to have major abdominal surgery to experience such sensations. Here at the Sea Dragon, they’re yours for just three bucks.

When it is over, I stagger off the ride like a guy whose stomach just exploded.

“That was so fun,” the little girl says.

“Really was,” I say.

“What now?” her friend asks.

“Let’s go to the game,” I say.

The pier is just our pregame party.

The real reason we’re in Santa Monica is to see a high school playoff game, pitting our local high school heroes against the Vikings, the pride and joy of Santa Monica High, where if you can get the kids off the surfboards long enough, you can assemble a pretty decent football team.

And boy, have they ever. Our gutsy little team can’t keep up with the far swifter Santa Monica players.

Sometimes, it’s as if our guys are trying to tackle ghosts, diving for some fleet receiver and coming up empty-armed and confused.

Suddenly, the night is gray as a Cagney film. A chill comes up through the bleacher seats. There is autumn in our joints.

A week earlier, our team pulled off one of the great comebacks in school history, with a fourth-quarter miracle the kids will remember forever. In 30 years, they’ll drink beer with their former teammates and remember the cool of the grass that night. The way the moon looked. How the cheerleaders’ hair smelled like roses.

Tonight that great game already seems a lifetime ago. Even the school band, which traveled 20 miles to entertain us, appears to be off its game. Its version of “Louie Louie” groans like an old truck.

“Do you know ‘Jingle Bells’?” the little girl asks one of the drummers.

“Anybody know ‘Jingle Bells’?” the drummer screams down to the flutes and clarinets.

“How about the theme from Nordstrom?” her friend adds.

“Nordstrom?” I ask.

“Yeah, Nordstrom,” she says.

Isn’t that great? At 10, they’ve got more one-liners than I do. At 10, they’ve got their mothers’ tongues.

“Listen,” the little girl tells her friend.

“What?”

“He’s playing ‘Jingle Bells,’” the little girl says.

“Who?”

Ten rows down, someone has begun to play the first Christmas song of the season, on an old tuba--a horn with more metal than your average Toyota. More dents, too.

“Sounds pretty good,” the little girl says, her eyes twinkling like the holidays ahead.

“Sounds great,” I say.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.