Fun With Gravity

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Amusement at Knoebels
A wooden roller coaster designer doesn't go for the cheap thrills of steel giants.

Knoebel bought it and had it moved in sections to Elysburg. In three months, at a cost of about $1 million, it was re-erected at the park under Fetterman's direction, given a fresh coat of deep-forest-green paint and opened for business June 15, 1985. It was renamed, fittingly, the Phoenix.

Munch credits the move with helping to turn the world's eyes back to the wooden ride that was quickly disappearing from the American landscape. Knoebels showed that an old coaster could be revived, and dozens of others followed.

"If it wasn't for them, the past would be lost," says Munch.

"We thought it was great we were moving a roller coaster," Fetterman says. "As time goes on, I see there was more in what we did than what we thought at the time. . . . We proved again the wooden coaster could be successful."

Safety, and Satisfaction, in Numbers

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When he was very young, he discovered numbers. He remembers the euphoria when he suddenly realized the symmetry of 10, how it made everything click.

Three and seven are married and four and six are married. Add seven and six, split the seven into four and three. Four goes with the six to make 10.

"I can't say it's rational, but it's emotional for me that numbers go together," he says of how he imposes order with the numbers flying about his brain.

This gift was better than his musical talent. Even though he played the piano extraordinarily well as a boy, he found it stressful to be around other people, much less compete as a solo performer. Numbers, though, were a refuge.

As he got older, he'd read road signs as he rode in the car with his mother: 47 miles to Pittsburgh, 53 miles to somewhere else. He'd play with the numbers in his head, faster than he could form words:

Forty-seven and 53 are equi-distant from 50. Square 50, that's easy, 2,500. Since 47 and 53 are three away from 50 , take three and square that. Take nine from 2,500 and get 2,491. Forty-seven times 53 is 2,491.

"It doesn't sound all that sexy, but it's reassuring somehow," he says. He shares his love of numbers with his wife, Louise. They both worked at Knoebels during their teenage years; he saw her when he came home to visit from college, but blond, pretty and popular, she was always dating someone else. He finally screwed up the courage to ask her out. They married after she graduated from college; she's now a senior financial adviser at a medical center.

"My wife is much smarter than I am," he says. They have three children: Sarah, Erica and John Allen, named for the roller-coaster designer. John Allen, at 16 the youngest, works in the arcade. The girls worked at Knoebels during the summer when they were growing up.