The forecast for the weekend is hot. I mean up-into-the-nineties, we're-having-a-heat-wave, stinking hot. My Yankee constitution is not wired for this kind of swelter. Still, I have but one thought: "Perfect!"

That's because come Thursday, I am going to be packing my beach bag and heading for some fun in the sun at one of the most peopled and popular stretches of sand on the Maine coast: Old Orchard Beach. Ordinarily, this might be my idea of a petite slice of purgatory: spend the hottest weekend of the year at the most crowded beach, with its amusement park, fried food, hustlers and hucksters, whining kids, dive bars, sleazy T-shirt shops, tattoo parlors and, to go with it all, lots and lots of uncomely flesh.Blech.

But this is not ordinarily. I am going on a pilgrimage of sorts, returning to the OOB of my youth, when an annual trip to Palace Playland was the modern-day equivalent of going to Disney World. I can hear the tinny song of the merry-go-round and smell the Pier fries — always with white vinegar on them — and remember the thrill of the Tilt-A-Whirl, the come-on bark of the carnies and the sight of big-bellied French-Canadian men crammed into skimpy Speedos and strutting along the shore. And I remember a couple of subsequent college-age visits with the girls, drinking in the bars, getting hit on by the locals, going on a few rides until one of us felt ill, and then heading back to Portland.

It had been years since I'd visited or even thought about Old Orchard Beach. I wanted to see what it was like these days and find out why, through all its various incarnations over the past century-and-a-half — stagecoach stop, tony seaside resort, big band hot spot, Canadian Riviera, dangerous biker town, family vacation destination — it continues to attract so many visitors. But mostly, I wanted to see if it's still fun.

To do that, I decide I need to stay right in the heart of the action, deep in Quebecois country, at a motel called the KebeK 3. I will park my car for the weekend and access only what foot travel will allow. I will eat pizza and pier fries. I will play games and go on rides. I will sit on the beach and swim in the surf. And I will go to the bars and boogie (there can be no other word for it) with the best of them — although the boogieing will have to wait until my husband, John, joins me on Friday night. Till then, I am on my own.

To be perfectly honest, I selected the KebeK 3 because it sounded sort of tacky and funky, but when I arrive on Thursday afternoon I am at once taken with how sweet everything is. The rooms are pristine-clean. Giant baskets of petunias hang all along the length of the street-side deck (as is the way with many of the businesses in town, making even the seediest-looking strip motel seem cheerful). A young man is giving the lot a turn with a push broom, working at the Sisyphean task of sand control. And there it is, right before me, seven uninterrupted miles of Atlantic beachfront.

Prior to my departure, I had been informed by a friend about all the efforts in recent years to make Old Orchard Beach more visitor- and family-friendly: installation of Victorian streetlamps, brick sidewalks, and an improved town square; the Amtrak Downeaster train service and station; a brand-new visitors' welcome center and the construction of a behemoth condominium and retail complex — the Grand Victorian — hovering over the entrance to the Pier.

My friend did not report any of this news happily. He recalled a time when a young man could drink his way across town in bars with names like the Bucket of Blood. He feared OOB had already been sanitized enough by local do-gooders, and that all the continuing development was going to wreck the place and turn it into yet one more innocuous stretch of "improved" Maine oceanfront.

Well, I'm not entirely sure about my friend's definition of sanitizing, but my short walk reveals any number of places that might allay his concerns. Over on East Grand, the Galaxy advertises both foot-long lobster rolls and a wet T-shirt contest every Thursday. Next door, the Oasis boasts dollar drafts "all the time." Club Mirage is featuring a Van Halen Tribute Band tomorrow night. And, the next day, a visit to The Brunswick — an OOB institution on West Grand known for its live music and bar fights — confirms the beach's drinking days are alive, if not well.

Back on the main drag, a Neil Diamond song spills out from a sweatshirt shop, where boogie boards, grass mats, beach umbrellas, and camp chairs are piled high in the entry, as they are in front of most every business in sight. Large women in diaphanous beach cover-ups window-shop with their skinny husbands, gently murmuring and cooing at the sparkly clothing and jewelry hanging on display, "Oooh, c'est tres jolie." The husbands lean in, arms clasped behind their backs as though contemplating a matter of some importance, and nod gravely, "Oui, oui."

The street is a wild jumble of types: old biker broads in tight leather, yuppie parents pushing expensive strollers, seniors sipping cool drinks, and kids everywhere. Just as I had feared, there is a lot of exposed flesh — with nary an attempt to even mildly conceal the big butt, the beer gut, the muffin top, the saggy breasts, or the dimpled thunder thighs. It's a sort of supersized version of Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, and I don't let my eye linger anywhere too long.

In the square, a father and his son are terrorizing a seagull with what appears to be a cross between a cornet and a peashooter made out of PVC pipe. (I later learn that these are marshmallow guns.) A very large mother tags behind her very large preteen daughter, who is doing a swift number on a box of saltwater taffy, calling after her, "Is that good, baby?" My favorite sight is two teenage girls trying to affect an air of ennui while the Super Star — an airborne version of a ride I remember as the Scrambler — tosses them around, even though I'm sure they're just dying to scream, or at least smile. But something else strikes me. Every single person I see has one thing in common: They all appear to be enjoying themselves. A lot.

I finally make my way down to the water at six. Even at that hour there are dozens and dozens and dozens of people still camped out under umbrellas and splashing in the surf. Not since my Coppertone youth have I had much interest in summertime beaches, but this is all right. I wander down to the ocean's edge and wade in. Before long, I find myself frolicking. I bound upwards and dodge a wave. I cut through the center of another and ride another in. I stand and let one crash into me like a linebacker and then just float, merrily, merrily, merrily. And what's this? A smile? I'm floating in the ocean at OOB in the height of summer, and I'm smiling.

The following morning, I catch up with Suzanne Beaulieu and her husband, Marc Bourassa, owners of the KebeK 3. Suzanne is second generation in the business, and their adult daughter, Danielle, is the third. Suzanne's family had been vacationing here from their home in Quebec since she was a child when her father purchased a small hotel in 1966. The family — which includes eight children — went on to open three motels through the seventies, the KebeKs 1, 2, and 3. Suzanne and Marc — who also has a long history in the area — bought the KebeK 3 in 1990. The couple has seen their share of ups and downs on the beach.

Their first summer of business was a test. Gas prices hit the roof, the Canadian dollar was in a slump, and half of their rooms were empty. OOB was working on revitalizing its image, but progress was slow. Marc says there were something like twenty-nine bars in town and recalls walking up and down West Grand into the wee hours, policing the street for drunks and trouble. This was not a way to attract repeat clientele.

So he ran for and was elected to the city council, where he spent eight years working on cleaning up the town — both literally and figuratively. Progress was made. In addition to all the structural improvements, you can't help but notice how clean the streets are. Brooms are constantly going in front of every business. Restaurant workers are out early wiping down tables. Trash seems to end up in cans. For a town that must generate an enormous amount of garbage every day, the place is remarkably tidy — albeit in a likeable, scruffy sort of way. But will development change that? When the money rolls in, will the kitsch — and the fun — roll out?

Marc is diplomatic. He feels like the Grand Victorian is a positive, but he also recognizes there are diverse interests in conflict. Personally, he thinks the presence of upscale shops can only help the town's image. And he is skeptical that the good old days — the ones I remember so fondly — aren't as good as some think. "Do you remember the donkey mines?" he asks. (You could ride real, live, defecating donkeys in tunnels under Noah's Ark.) "You want to talk about stink!" He laughs. "Perhaps we romanticize the past." He's right, of course.

Danielle is even more upbeat. "Change is positive," she asserts when I later find her manning the front desk — effortlessly gliding between French and English with each call — after a day of cleaning rooms. She, too, sees the Victorian as a step in the right direction. She's also mildly ambivalent about the amusement park, adding that there could, perhaps, be a better use of that space — a convention center, for example — that might bring visitors to the beach year-round rather than just the three months the park is open. Yet there is no denying that kind of improvement would change the nature of Old Orchard Beach for good.

Or would it?

At the Old Orchard Beach Historical Society, housed at the top of Old Orchard Street, overlooking town, it is all Plus ?a change, plus c'est la m?me chose. My eighty-four-year-old guide, Dick, who has been summering in OOB since he was a boy, focuses on the beach's illustrious seaside history. As we pore over old photographs, it is apparent one thing has remained constant throughout the generations: the absolute throngs who visit. Whether clad in heavy dark skirts and broad-brimmed hats, long striped bathing costumes or itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikinis, people cover almost every inch of beachfront in every single photo. The hand of man may change the town, but the real appeal has always been and always will be the beach.

My husband, John, arrives on Friday, and we hit the Pier fries stand first — a modest pint to split — while we stroll. These fat crinkle cuts are just as I remembered: crispy outside, with pillowy, piping-hot insides that cook your teeth. The servings are not stingy, either; the kids manning the window pile the fries as high as the container will allow. At $2.25 a pint, they're one of the best bargains at the beach. (The pizza slices — we made tries at both Bill's and Lisa's — didn't measure up as well. Both were sort of cardboardy and too tomatoey.)

We work our way out to the end of the Pier, where, in a cavernous bar, a potty-mouthed British humorist/singer/guitarist regales a crowd who may or may not have been here all day. We listen for a while, then slide out onto the narrow deck to take in the cool breeze and the wide expanse of ocean in front of us. Down the beach, it is a Seurat blur of colorful dots packed together on the sand. A woman seated near me is sipping a drink the color of AstroTurf, and I ask her what it is. She squints up at me and answers, "Sex on a Pool Table."

The next day, we hit the amusements. John and I warm up with a little pinball before we take on SkeeBall in the arcade. (Nine balls for twenty-five cents — how can you beat it?) The electronic video din around us is deafening. A constant hot breeze that is both dusty and greasy swirls around us. We stay until we've won coils and coils of tickets, enough to redeem them for (as it turns out) a single comb.

I have saved Saturday night for the rides. The Pirate Ship is its usual vertiginous fun. A ride called (for no apparent reason) the Matterhorn has all the thrills and chills of a spin on the Portland Metro. This bolsters my courage for the Super Star, where I had earlier seen the bored girls. The moment we lift off, all science exits my brain. Faith in centrifugal force abandons me. I am certain if I don't hold on with a death grip and with my feet splayed like a cat, I will go hurtling out into the OOB stratosphere. I clench my jaw and grip the bar until the thing finally comes to rest. While disembarking, I ask the two young girls in front of me (who are, perhaps, six) if they weren't scared. They both turn and give me a look of real, not feigned, ennui and say no. My hands ache from holding on.

John joins me on the Ferris wheel for our parting amusement. We are secured into our gondola by a polite Eastern European young man (hardly my idea of a carny) and soon drift aloft. As I look out over the beach, I think that OOB is still pretty skeezy. There's all that bare skin and tacky beach crap. Pier fries aside, the food is sort of gross. And there isn't one bar I would set foot in alone. And yet, and yet, is it fun?

As our car swings back and forth in the black night above the dancing bubble of lights and noise and smells, I have but one thought:

You bet it is.