Standard-Speaker from Hazleton, Pennsylvania • Page 55

Standard-Speaker APRIL 12, 1998 HAZLETON, PA Health G3 Travel G4-5 Leisure G6 mo wMP lei tfABkb juh 4) Dave Barry hat new at Herskey? 1 Stories by Mike Jesky Photography by Eric Conover Roller coaster's riders to get a look below Without the screams of frightened passengers piercing the air, it's hard to imagine just how terrifying 2,800 feet of steel can really be. But then again, a hibernating.bear usually looks pretty peaceful. This spring, "Great Bear," Hershey-park's new $13 million roller coaster, will awaken. All the track is in place, supported by large girders that look like very tall light posts, some reaching as high as 90 feet above the ground. Construction workers crawl all over Great Bear like fleas, finishing up work here and there, attaching the hanging cars to the track.

Come May 23, Memorial Day weekend, the first carload of 32 victims will spend 175 seconds being thrown around by Great Bear (- A ty .11 I', ti riVi SCO. kt 'J 3 IV SKg I at speeds reaching 58 miles per hour. Jeff Budgeon, Hersheypark's managing director of planning, engineering and maintenance, gave a tour of the construction site in late March and detailed the planning and reasoning that went into choosing Great Bear as the park's sixth coaster. Great Bear the name actually comes from the constellation Ursa Major, the largest constellation in the galaxy is Pennsylvania's first steel inverted roller coaster, which means passengers are suspended from the track which actually runs above them. Although seated and supported by a shoulder harness, there is the See COASTER, G2 Hersheypark's Great Bear roller coaster has a 90-foot lift with a greater 124-foot initial drop.

Finally, a new toilet that works As an American, I am feeling pretty darned proud of my country (America). I will tell you why: My new I wound up with this toilet as a result of a column I wrote last year, in which I complained bitterly about the new toilets that we Americans had been saddled with as a result of an act of Congress (official motto: "100 Senators; 435 Representatives; No This was the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1992, which decreed that all new toilets had to use 1.6 gallons of water per flush less than half the amount of water that the old toilets used. This was supposed to save water. Unfortunately, the new toilets have a problem. They work fine for one type of bodily function, which, in the interest of decency, I will refer to here only by the euphemistic term "No.

1." But many of the new toilets do a very poor job of handling "acts of Congress," if you get my drift. They often must be flushed two or three times, and even more if it is an unusually large act of Congress, such as might be produced by a con-gressperson who recently attended a fund-raising dinner sponsored by the Consolidated Bulk Food Manufacturers. The result is that these new toilets were not only annoying, but in some cases seemed to be using MORE water than the old ones. So I wrote a column complaining about this, and expressing support for a bill, introduced by Rep. Joe Knollen-berg of Michigan, that would allow us to go back to toilets that have the kind of flushing power that made America the most respected nation on Earth.

You know how cynics claim that Americans are just a bunch of TV-sedated zombie slugs who don't care about the issues? Well, I wish those cynics had been standing under my mail slot after my toilet column was published, because they would have been crushed like baby spiders under a freight locomotive. I got a huge quantity of letters some of them far more detailed than I would have liked from Americans who care DEEPLY about the issue of their toilets, and the vast majority of them HATE the new ones. Granted, I got a few letters supporting the new toilets, but these were mostly from ecology nuts who, because of their organic granola diets, probably don't even NEED toilets, just whisk brooms. There was also a somewhat snippy editorial about my column in The Washington Post (motto: "Even Our Weather Forecast Comes From Anonymous But the vast majority of the people who responded agreed strongly with me and were ready to revolt over this issue, just as, in 1773, the courageous Boston Tea Party patriots revolted against British tyranny by throwing 1.6-gallon toilets into the harbor. Then, about five months after my column appeared, I got a letter from Charles Avoles of Contractors 2000, an association of independent plumbing contractors.

He said that a New York City company, Varsity Plumbing, in an effort to find a 1.6-gallon toilet that actually works, built a testing laboratory with room for six toilets side by side. Avoles said that Varsity duplicated all the standard toilet tests, but then, in its quest for the ultimate small toilet the Tara Lipinski of toilets Varsity "pushed the criteria even further, straining each model to its limits." It must have been exciting: Six toilets, pushing the envelope, going head to head! I don't even want to think about it. Anyway, according to Avoles, See BARRY, G3 A www Tour ride improved as part of Chocolate World's facelift i If, ILV-. 91 "ou can say that it's just chocolate, but for many people there's something "i ill mBA for photographs in a very Dis-ney-esque manner. The highlight of the renovations which are actually the first phase of a three-part project aimed at refinishing the entire facility is the new tour ride.

"If you would have been here six months ago, some of this stuff would not have been here," said Don Papson, Hershey general manager, standing in the Chocolate World lobby. New decorations, flooring and furniture have given the lobby a '90s look. "This is the first phase of the project," he said, moving on to the tour ride area, which is adjacent to the lobby and starts with a handpainted hallway which depicts the forests where cocoa beans are harvested. special about Hershey's chocolate special enough to persuade well over 2 million people to visit Chocolate World in 1997, nearly twice the number of visitors to the White House. To help keep all those visitors happy, Chocolate World, the free visitor's center in Hershey, just underwent a $3.5 million facelift.

The new look, along with an improved simulated chocolate-making tour ride, was unveiled to the public last month and is now open. To help personalize the experience, brand-new Hershey product characters a Hershey's Kiss, Reese's peanut butter cups, Kit-Kats, York peppermint patties, Twizzler licorice, and, of Vv at 1 Costumed characters greet guests inside. "The second phase is the retail area. The third phase is food service," Papson said. "That takes us to the year 2000." Both the food court See CHOCOLATE, G2 course, the old-fashioned chocolate bar greet visitors.

Outside, they're on a colorful 12-by-20-foot sign above the entrance; inside, the actual larger-than-life characters meet everyone at the door, shaking hands, hugging and posing u-i. A sin adorns Chocolate World's exterior. rs 111 BEAN CLEANER A 1 As visitors walk to the ride, they can view panels about the town's history; inside, there are displays of the chocolate-making process. i i I.