If you really love me …

… you’ll get me an emu egg from Whole Foods. So much more fun than Hallmark.

When the boardwalk was vapors-inducingly crowded one blazing day last summer, we ducked into Astroland and bought cold beers and hot Italian sausage. Lulled, I guess, by the premature Coney Island obituaries of the year before, I didn’t take this photo thinking of souvenirs. I was just revelling in how good the sausage and beer tasted, and appreciating how relaxed and smooth the cook was on his grill despite the mayhem and cotton candy around him. (And seriously, shades? That’s soignee.)

But now that’s that, for real this time. For the last couple of weeks pictures have been popping up of the demolition of Astroland – rocket ship, Dante’s devil’s head and all. Well, not quite all: they’re leaving the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, and Thor Equities say they will be bringing in new rides. I relish a little tradition with my hot dogs, however, and the fact that Astroland is getting the Extreme Makeover treatment doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t want to buy my sunstruck snacks from just another plastic franchise. I like the idea of that grill grate being slowly seasoned with carbonized sausage particles since the park first opened in 1962. I like the idea that for four decades a sausage and a cold beer were the flavor of surviving a ride on the Top Spin, or of my first grown-up birthday party in New York, or of a cheap date or a family day out, and they were enough – delicious, in fact – just the way they were. Overly romantic nonsense? Maybe. But why are we so afraid to let anything get old any more?