Amusement Park

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in extreme northeast Washington County, is the sleepy, out-of-the-way community of Pen Mar, population 290.More than a century ago, Pen Mar's existence was shaped by an amusement park that attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists from Baltimore and elsewhere each summer. Today, that park is long gone. But Pen Mar, at least in the minds of its longtime residents, is still very much a community defined by memories of Pen Mar Park."There was a time, when I was young, when everybody who lived in Pen Mar worked in the park," says Virginia Bruneske, 71. A lifelong Pen Mar resident, Mrs. Bruneske worked in the amusement park's photo gallery in her high school days.

Once upon a time in Ellicott City, the Three Pigs, the Old Lady in the Shoe and Humpty Dumpty delighted children in the Enchanted Forest.On Friday, after three years of repairs, the former amusement park began turning new pages in an old book.At 5 p.m., Safeway supermarket, Encore Books and Little Alexander's Pastaria and Bakery opened in the new 136,000-square-foot Enchanted Forest Shopping Center.By summertime, the children's park and 30 stores in the shopping center, including Smythe Jewelry, a card shop and a cosmetic store, will be operating, said Jeffrey S. Pechter, vice president of the group that bought the park in 1988.

A day after word leaked out, the Walt Disney Co. yesterday acknowledged it is negotiating with the Orioles to build a spring-training complex at Disney World.In a statement issued from its Florida headquarters, Disney said it is "having discussions" with many professional and amateur sports organizations about a planned sports complex at its theme park in Orlando, Fla."Among the many options we are considering is a . . . lease agreement for spring training with the Orioles," the statement said.

A group of Glen Burnie residents is hoping that the formal appeal they filed yesterday against a fun park proposed for their area will do what their verbal objections didn't: convince Anne Arundel County that the park doesn't belong in the neighborhood. The group, calling itself Homeowners Organized to Protect Our Environment (HOPE), is a loose confederation of neighborhood associations ringing the long-closed Furnace Creek and the Dover Road dump. Since May, when Edgemere resident Les Jenkins proposed building his Les Jenkins Family Fun Park at Dover Road and Ritchie Highway, they have complained about the traffic, noise and environmental problems they say the development would bring.

The company that owns Enchanted Forest on U.S. 40 in Ellicott City is apparently open to reviving the abandoned children's theme park.Rick Lepski, co-chairman of a grass-roots organization called Friends of the Enchanted Forest, said he was encouraged by his hourlong meeting a week ago with Pat Hughes, chief executive of Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust (MART), a Linthicum company that has owned the amusement park and the shopping center adjacent to it since June 1997."We seem to be all headed in the same direction," Lepski said yesterday.

Friends of The Enchanted Forest have about $380,000 of the $1.2 million they estimate is needed to reopen the once-popular Ellicott City amusement park for young children. Rick Lepski, chairman of the grass-roots organization, said yesterday that the group has about $160,000 worth of in-kind donations -- such as landscaping services -- and about $220,000 in pledges from corporate sponsors. The group expects to get the rest of the money from fund-raisers and grants. Members have asked the county to contribute, although county officials have not included funding in the proposed budget for next year.

The company that owns Enchanted Forest on U.S. 40 in Ellicott City is apparently open to reviving the abandoned children's theme park.Rick Lepski, co-chairman of a grass-roots organization called Friends of the Enchanted Forest, said he was encouraged by his hourlong meeting a week ago with Pat Hughes, chief executive of Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust (MART), a Linthicum company that has owned the amusement park and the shopping center adjacent to it since June 1997."We seem to be all headed in the same direction," Lepski said yesterday.

Set in the summer of 1987, Adventureland takes its title from a seedy Pittsburgh-area amusement park where the hero, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), hopes to make enough money to enter Columbia's graduate school of journalism in the fall. With its rigged game booths and nausea-inducing rides, the park is a sordid limbo for overeducated slackers. But when James settles into Adventureland, it lives up to its name. And so does this funky, heartfelt movie. An uncommon coming-of-age film, Adventureland is a bittersweet joy. Its humor and romance are refreshing because the writer-director, Greg Mottola, realizes that maturity is a two-steps-forward, one-step-backward process.

When Victoria Crenson first visited the old Bay Shore amusement park on a cold winter day in 1991, she saw its ruins among the trees.A year later, in spring, she found the park blanketed by foliage, bushes, vines, flowers and weeds. She could see nothing else. ** "It was amazing how in 45 years something so evident had become so invisible," the Mount Washington writer said.In that contrast lay the seed of Ms. Crenson's latest book, "Bay Shore Park, The Death and Life of an Amusement Park."

For a growing number of Americans, theme parks are !B becoming more of a vacation lure than ever -- for good reasons. Theme park visits are easy to plan, provide a lot of entertainment, and are pretty much guaranteed to please.Cedar Point, OhioCedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, which has gained the title of world's largest roller-coaster park, is into its 127th season. The park, along Lake Erie, features 57 thrilling rides, live shows and lakeside accommodations.This year's new thrill is Chaos, a whirling ride that flips, spins and twists in three directions on a rotating and tilting platform.