I couldn't believe my eyes as we pulled into the sprawling parking lot of Michigan's Adventure amusement park last week. It was practically empty!

Time for a quick decision. Do I take my eight-year-old son directly to Shivering Timbers, the longest and fastest coaster in the state, or do I warm him up on the smaller rides before heading to the 125-foot monster?

Not wanting to overthink the decision, I rush with my two brothers-in-law and their eight-year-old sons to the 57-mile-per-hour wooden giant. Just as expected, there was no line. Indeed, the coaster was waiting for us. Only eight seats were occupied and the attendants were waiting to fill the rest.

It all happened so quickly that we three dads didn't have time to put our heads together and decide whether we were making the right decision. My original idea was that, by not having time to think about it, the boys wouldn't have time to freak out and cop out. By waiting in line with my dad for a whole hour to ride my first coaster — the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood, now a century old and a National Historic Landmark — I thought I had too much time to think about it when I was my son's age. But in hindsight, at 40 feet and a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour, the Jack Rabbit is nothing compared to Shivering Timbers.

Bear's ambivalence teetered on the edge of panic as we buckled into our seats. A young attendant came along to make sure that he really wanted to ride. My first thought was, "hey, I'm the dad! What say do you have in the matter?" Then again, times have changed drastically since my dad took me on my first ride in 1977. Today, I could easily be hauled away for child abuse (yes, I realize I just opened up a can of worms in the comments section).

Luckily for me — and ultimately for him — Bear finally collected his wits and acceded to my wish.

Off we go with a clickity clack to the lift hill. The chain engages the underside of the carriage with a jerk and we begin our ascent. This gives me time to point out sights to my son in an attempt to calm his nerves — "See, there's our car! And there's the Ferris wheel! And there's the American flag at the top!" — as if my son could care, his face flushed, his knuckles white as he grips the restraint. "I'm really scared, dad," he finally admits. "Too late now," I mutter under my breath.

As we crest the lift hill, another memory flashes through my mind. My dad never touched me throughout my first ride. In fact, his hands were in the air the whole time. I seemed to recall that that impressed me. Only now did I ask myself whether he was resisting the temptation to hold me as I was resisting the temptation now. I wanted my son to feel the airtime. I wanted the rickety track to bang his brain around. In effect, if I had held him, it wouldn't have been his first ride. He would have been just as scared the second time. I justified the decision to keep my hands off of him by reminding myself that, unlike a bicycle or the monkey bars, he wasn't going to fall off. When I was eight, I reached a point on the Jack Rabbit when I realized that dad wasn't scared at all. He was actually laughing.

"That's it!" I thought to myself as we dipped out of the 55-degree drop. "I should laugh! Then he'll know I'm not scared and he'll laugh too!"

Well, Bear may have squeezed out a chuckle, but the clanking of the steel wheels was too loud for me to know for sure. In any case, the speed seems to never let up as we rip through two Camelbacks, a Bunny Hop, another Camelback, and a Double Uphill (terms only coaster engineers and enthusiasts are familiar with) before entering the turnaround.

And therein lies the difference.

In many cases, the turnaround gives you a breather; a moment of relief for first-timers like my son and his two cousins. You survey the ground, notice its closer, and realize the worst is over. I distinctly remember that moment on the Jack Rabbit. So, if there's ever a time to laugh, that's it.

Not so with Shivering Timbers. You're on the fourth-longest wooden roller coaster in the world and a half-mile from your starting point. Gravity still has to pull you back another half mile. So, no time to waste as the turnaround whips us around at 42 miles per hour and throws us into a series of Bunny Hills, thrusting us toward home base. Head down, Bear only manages a "yeeeee … AGGHH!" (I think he was aiming at "yeeeee-haaaaaa!").

The final section consists of a 630-degree helix, giving my son the G-forces of his dreams. The surprises are over, his stomach settles, and finally, I hear him burst into a genuine, unstifled, infectious giggle.

When all was said and done, my son was the only boy to say he wanted to go again. But I don't think that alone justifies my decision to rush the ride on him. One of my brothers-in-law astutely observed that it was the lack of a pause in the middle that probably made his son say enough is enough (in addition to the fact that, due to factors beyond his control, his dad had to sit behind him). I must say my brother-in-law had a good point. A hiatus would have made the thrill less shocking, especially since there was no lag between arriving at the park and riding the coaster.

Life, too, needs pauses. Amidst all the ups and downs, there must be a few flat sections to level out our spirits, giving us a chance to look back at where we've come from and forward to what's to come. I had that moment on the Jack Rabbit, and it's half the size of Shivering Timbers. So that was one humbling lesson.

But something else happened that day that taught me another humbling lesson. I naively thought that one ride on Shivering Timbers, the park's biggest and scariest attraction, would have made all the other rides a piece of cake for my son. Not so. Bear had no desire to ride the Corkscrew or float down the Funnel of Fear. Granted, the former inverts you and the latter is a slide on which you can actually get thrown from your inner tube. But in my mind, the Corkscrew is considerably slower and shorter, and the Funnel of Fear is all the more fun when you end up off the tube and in the water. But not in the mind of an eight-year-old.

In short, one frightful moment is not enough to propel you fearless through life. Why should it be? I still have an irrational fear of rejection and failure even after countless rejections and failures. A moment of reflection gave me the sympathy my son deserved that day.

I don't know if my dad remembers taking me on my first coaster, but I'll never forget taking my son. At fifty-five years old, I'm certainly on the backside of life, enjoying the Bunny Hops and looking back at the big Camelbacks I survived on the frontside. I think I've made the rites of passage that give me a greater appreciation for the rites of passage awaiting my son. That first losing baseball season (he's only played for city champs so far), the first day of school (he's been homeschooled but will enter third grade at a "real" school this fall), his first kiss (I suspect he's already had his first crush), going off to college, getting a job, getting married, having kids, and a host of other daunting hills along the way.

The thing about life is that, for the most part, it's safer than we think. Yes, there are tragedies, just as there are outlier accidents on roller coasters. Yet no one has ever been injured or killed on Shivering Timbers, and yet the ride is designed precisely to make you fear injury and death. Perhaps life is designed that way too.

The now defunct firm that engineered Shivering Timbers, Custom Coasters International, was known for its "overbuilt" aesthetic. The sprawling southern-yellow-pine frame supporting the coaster is a fine example. Watching the ride as an observer, you can see that, in reality, barely a timber shivers. But when you're on the ride, you're just waiting for a tie beam (another nerdy term) to snap and the coaster to go flying off the track. Just like life.

The fascinating thing about coasters — and life — is that both draw us inexorably forward. A coaster uses the force of gravity, and life, time. Yet we are always on some track. Certain factors determine the direction we go and whether we sink or rise along the way. Most importantly, just when we think we've hit rock bottom, something forces us to bounce back up again. And just when we think we've reached our peak, something plunges us back into the abyss.

I want my son to feel that. Most importantly, I want him to have a ton of laughs along the way.