There’s still a big part of me that loves the Great Escape amusement park in Lake George. Of course, I loved it when it was Storytown, but that’s me.
And over the years, either through online acquisitions or from visiting the park itself and getting one handed to me by the great sheriff Wild Windy Bill McKay, I had a nice collection of Storytown deputy sheriff’s badges. There were slight variations from year to year – the first badge was grey with a blue border; during the 1970’s and 1980’s it was a yellow badge with red points; and the last few years were blue badges with white points, although there were badges for Wild Windy’s 50th anniversary as a marshall, and a badge for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the park.
And with that, I had acquired 14 of those badges. I also snagged an old double-sided coin that could be used in both Storytown and its companion amusement park Gaslight Village, and had everything originally framed up years ago.
But I didn’t like the way the frame looked, and I took everything out. Some of the badges later appeared in a documentary on the history of the park and its founder, Charles R. Wood, that was produced by WMHT. So I still had all those badges.
Plus, someone who knew I was a fan of the park gifted me an old cardboard bumper sticker. The rule at the park was, if you parked your car in the lot in the morning, by the time you got done with the park someone had added the bumper sticker to your fender. Of course, if you put your windshield sun visor down, it meant that you didn’t need a bumper sticker affixed to your car, but hey, that’s advertising.
Time to do something with all this stuff.
I picked up a white 16×20 frame from Michael’s Art Supply, and carefully arranged all the badges into two semicircles, with the bumper sticker on top.
And when it was done …
I hung it up in my home office.
Now the thing is, I can still add to this project. If I come across old Storytown / Great Escape ephemera or exonumia in the future, I can put it in those white spaces in the collage. So technically, it’s a work in progress.
But man, that’s some nice progress. Especially on a cool Sunday afternoon.
Almost makes me wish the park was open again.
I need a ride on the Comet like I need a breath of air.
Chuck The Writer 