2005: You Remind Me of the Babe

When my oldest daughter, Luci, was 4-years-old, one of our favorite pastimes was to sit down and watch Jim Henson's Labyrinth while her mom looked after our newborn, Lilly. I'm not kidding you, we all must have watched the movie more than fifty times.

In the Fall of 2005, we were living in Smyrna, TN. Late one night, we were heading to the grocery story when we drove nearby the bowling alley just off Sam Ridley.  We saw a carnival had setup and Luci became excited.

We stopped and purchased some tickets to let her get on the kiddie rides. Lilly was resting peacefully in her stroller and my wife was able to unwind while I focused primarily on keeping up with Luci.

We saw an airplane ride and there was no line.  Luci wanted to ride in the airplane, but there were no other children there.  My wife and I were both very hesitant to let her go up by herself.  Yes, we were still in that very over-protective phase. Finally, reluctantly we agreed when the ride operator assured us that he would stop the ride immediately if anything went amiss.

Luci was daring, no fear in her little eyes and she was ready "for the rush". She climbed into one of the planes, was fastened securely and off she went.  About one minute later, just as the airplanes jetted from the ground, high above our heads, we heard what my wife and I thought was screaming.  I knew for certain Luci was freaking out at being so high from the ground.  My wife asked the operator to stop the ride.

Just as the ride started to slow down a bit, we were finally able to see and hear Luci.  She was leaning forward with her hands outstretched into the air and she was singing "Magic Dance" from the Labyrinth movie.  The part where she would belt out "left my baby blue" was what we heard that sounded like screaming.

Knowing she was happy and safe, we asked the operator to continue the ride.  People from all around began to gather to watch Luci and to take pictures (and of course, I didn't have my camera with me).  She was such a ham.  When the ride stopped, all of the airplanes were filled to capacity and the ride operator let Luci get a second go-round on the house.

Some days, I was I could shrink this teenage version of her back down to that wide-eyed little girl once more.  This is one of my favorite memories of my daughter growing up.

~Will