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When Your Birthday Is a Rollercoaster

Jeffrey Cohen
3 min readApr 19, 2020

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Earlier this month, I celebrated my first birthday ever in quarantine. No, I’m not infected — we’re all essentially in quarantine as we shelter in place. With less testing being done (as the Trump crime family seeks to limit the true scope of the COVID19 pandemic), it’s hard to determine who is asymptomatic and who is not infected.

Rollercoaster (1977) movie
Rollercoaster in Sensurround, which came out in 1977.

As time drags and time flies, often at the same time, I reflected on the number of birthdays that I remember. My nine-year-old brazenly chirped, “You’re not a senior yet” on the morning of the big day. “Not yet,” I replied, reminding him that his bar mitzvah will happen before I hit retirement age.

Last year, my then-girlfriend took me to see the Loser’s Lounge, her favorite theme-friendly cover band. The year before that? Already I’m grasping for mental straws.

Working from birth to preteen, I have blurry memories of blowing out candles in a house, somewhere. No faces stand out. No presents made a lasting impression. I’ve consistently maintained that my first “standout” birthday was number 14, when I had a pizza party and took a few friends to see Rollercoaster in Sensurround. Like 3-D, Sensurround was an “enhancement” process for motion pictures that amplified the bass at certain points to give the impression of shaking. First used for the 1974 movie Earthquake, the process was used fleetingly after…

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Jeffrey Cohen
Jeffrey Cohen

Written by Jeffrey Cohen

Longtime writer and crank. Articles come from more than 30 years in journalism and corporate communications. Follow my podcast at MrJeff2000.podbean.com.

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