I looked up at the cheery sign adorned with anthropomorphic animals. The paint was more faded than I remembered, but the background music, clinking chain, and screams of the riders down the first hill were just as I remembered. Some things never changed. On our honeymoon she had screamed on the initial drop as well – her first ever roller coaster ride.

Teenagers without manners and families with strollers pushed past me in their rush to beat one another to the growing lines.

“Why can’t they just enjoy the day?” I asked.

“Because they are young,” my wife answered from somewhere behind me. “Everything is a rush for them.”

An attendant standing out front looked at me curiously. I started toward the line.

“Sir,” said the younger man, approaching me after glancing around. “You can save time going in the single-rider line.”

They didn’t have that last time I was here.

“No, thank you,” I responded. “We’ll just ride it together.”

He looked confused. He’s young. He doesn’t understand that she’s still with me.