Super Dads

Nick and Frank picked up Prin in front of his apartment in Terre Haute.

- Randy Boyagoda

This was the day for their visit to Dizzy’s World, the only amusement park nearby that was still open. Prin brought along a multipack of Pringles, his way of helping Nick stay off the Doritos. This got a good laugh, and he liked that these two older Indiana men —“light blue collar” — liked him too. He didn’t say much from the narrow bench back seat of Frank’s burgundy crew-cab F-150, which was space- shuttle clean and smelled like a lemon grove of baby wipes. With talk radio holler in the background —“To- day on the Perry Schlaffler Show: the White House’s Jordan Peterson whitewash, the truth behind Jerusalem artichokes, and more of your calls about the Geryon Jackson case” — he listened to Nick and Frank trade stories of what they had eaten, ridden, thrown up, and won on their many trips to Dizzy’s World, back when they were young, and then when they were dating their wives, and then when their kids were young. Lots of them, in all cases, even if the rides and attractions had changed over the years. Neither man had been to the park since the end of the American century.