Gay Days

The first gay event of the year here in the Bay Area is coming up quickly: Gay Day at Paramount's Great America. Great America is an amusement park in the middle of Silicon Valley, built in 1976 (the year of the bicentennial, hence the name "Great America"), and part of the childhood memories of anyone who grew up here.

Interesting fact: the park was first owned by Marriott corporation and was called "Marriott's Great America" (there is still a Marriott hotel next to the park). But everyone referred to it simply as "Marriott's". Even though Marriott sold the park over twenty years ago, I still occasionally (and unintentionally) refer to the park as "Marriott's". As do friends of mine who also grew up here, much to the confusion of transplants.

Old habits die hard.

Ironically, I haven't been to Great America for anything other than Gay Day for almost ten years. At this point, I've got a pretty strong association between Great America and, well, gay people. It would feel weird if I went there on a typical summer weekend and had to deal with much larger crowds of teenagers and straight families.