As I've posted about before, and even created a video poem (yes, that's a thing I made up, okay?) to, the Lake George trip my Aunt Ruth and my grandmother took my sister and I on in the summer of 1972 was perhaps one of the most memorable events of my childhood. Family outings for us were rare. Money may have been an issue but I think back now and believe it may have more to do with the way our family treated the idea of raising children as a chore rather than a joy. That theory is reinforced by some of the evidence I seem to pluck out of the ass of the internet as time goes on. One of those juicy pluckings are the pictures above. They're not taken by my family, they're random stranger's photos from the same general time period-ish that I visited. They show the very participatory activities and shows that were commonplace at one of the venues near Lake George that, as noted in the above linked post and video, Ruth, Memere, Cindy and I visited... Frontier Town.
I've previously misspelled the place as "Frontiertown" but as you can see by the signage and literature from the place, it was, in fact, "Frontier Town."
The venue apparently lasted for decades as evidenced by some of the pics of the ephemera above dating from the 80s for the pennant and with a web URL indicated, the brochure looks like its at least from the late 90s. But, Frontier Town also dates quite a ways back from my brief visit in '72 since the first sign in the three above is from 1956. Sadly, from the info I gathered in my research today though, it no longer exists. At least not as a themed attraction. There's now a campsite in that area with the same name but it's just a regular old campsite.
Here's the thing about the above pics of the attraction with all the kids participating in the shows and shit though... I don't remember one bit of that. All I remember is the round-up that I memorialize in my poems, at the fort, which is on this old park map:
All the other shit, I swear, we never got to see it. Why?
From what I read, and what you can see here on this Google Map, this attraction was yet another hour's drive from Lake George where we were staying.
My aunt, who, normally was pretty "chill" as they would say nowadays, was acting kinda frazzled and triggered the whole trip. It was, as you can see, a long fucking car ride already (why we went this far when there are other similar tourist trap locations closer to Rhode Island I have no idea) and it wasn't without incident. Her pretty much brand-new Chevy Nova was vandalized not a day after arriving. My sister and I had gotten little tiny souvenir Lake George pocket knives (knives for a 6 year old and 8 year old kid? It was the 70s!) and I had managed to utilized my knife on the rubber window seal of the back seat. Why? I don't know. I don't think I was trying to be a little monster, I just did things like that when I was a kid. I probably should have been sent to a therapist, but I wasn't. Why? Because, like I said, it was the fucking 70s!
I think my outburst at the fort cancelled not only any further exploration into Frontier Town since I'm pretty sure we didn't see anything else there, but I think it ended the trip entirely. Why? Because it was the 70s. And if raising children, even nephews and nieces on a week-long vacation, became too much of a chore, it was back to the ho hum of "nothing special for you" and "you don't deserve it" attitude. Kids weren't appreciated, they were endured.
But we did get to see some of these other sites before all of that, so here you go:
Above pics show "Storytown U.S.A." this apparently became a Six Flags many years later, but back in the early 70s, it was just a fairytale themed area with mild rides and fantasy-themed attractions. Very small but I do remember it.
Gaslight Village. This was like stepping into that "Willoughby" stop in that Twilight Zone episode, only it didn't mean you died in a train wreck, it just meant you coughed up money for some tourist trap olde timey shows and themed area. It was alright from what I remember. I loved theme parks, even small cheap ones like these. Of course, other than watching the topping off of Cinderella's Castle at the brand-new Walt Disney World in impossibly far-away Florida on TV, I had no clue what a world-class theme park would look like... yet.
Oh, oh! This is all I could find of this place, but it's the attraction we went to that was REALLY shady. I think we were the only visitors there and it featured incredibly crappy and poorly put together sets made to look like space shit like a flying saucer and rockets and shit. I mean, I was eight and I could tell this was a rip-off. Anyway, there was this worker sweeping up there and he was clearly Down Syndrome and I saw him and asked my aunt what his deal was. She said "I'll tell you when you grow up." Interestingly, when I did grow up, I was told by her that I couldn't come and visit with any of the clients I worked with at the group home, especially David who was quite Down's because "Uncle Ronny gets sick to his stomach when he sees them." Okay.
So I guess in some ways, when you think back to the things you experienced with adults who were there to guide you and support you in your childhood, you do think... "Gee, they were some fucking asshole people." And you just move on.
Lake George will always be on my mind, but it doesn't define me.