A Day At Mountain Park

One of the benefits of being on the air is that you have the ability to help people in your area far and above what other outlets can do. On occasion, a situation would arise during my 25+ years on the airwaves that made me try to help people who's luck seemed non existant.
The first time I did this was in the summer of 1980, but it was not for a person. It was for a statue. Yup, I was trying to help a statue.
There is a park in Holyoke that once was called Hampden Park. I remember that name because I once worked next to that park at the Hampden Park Atlantic station. George Taloumis owned it, Pete Parenteau was the mechanic, Lester Holubecki and I pumped gas there, and generally ran the place into the ground as none of us, except Pete ,had a clue as to what we were doing. A great example of this was the night I backed a Transcript Telegram truck into the lift that I forgot to put down. George was so mad at that the next day, he whipped the Holyoke Provision truck around the gas island and accidentally ripped down the lights over the island. It was a wierd place. Back to the statue.
The park was completely refurbished by the city of Holyoke in 1980, and the only thing left to do was clean the statue, but alas, there was no more money to do this. What are the odds?
I started wondering how I, a little talk show host at WREB, could raise the needed funds needed to have said statue cleaned and made wonderful again.
The park looked spiffy, and after months of deliberation, the name Hampden Park went into the dumpster, and the name Veterans Park was instituted.
Now it was up to me to raise the funds to have the statue de-pidgeonized after 100 years or so. I recalled one of my radio heros from when I was a kid. There was Phill Dee, Jack Diamond, Al Gates, and the nut of the airwaves on WHYN, Bud Stone. Bud did nutty things for no reason really. Once somebody had him sit in a camper for as long as he could, and live there, do his show, and people would talk about it. Sounds easy enough, but for one thing. The camper was suspended by a crane about 60 feet in the air, over an asphalt parking lot. I think he lasted 6 days. Another thing he did was see how long he could ride the roller coaster at Mountain Park. I don't recall how long he stayed on it, but that was the original idea I was going to steal to raise statue money. So I went on the air, contacted all the principles for this feat, and had anybody that wanted to pledge any amount per trip around the old wooden circuit that was The Mountain Park Rollercoaster. Anybody that wanted to ride around once next to me had to pay a buck per ride.
That Saturday came and the old WREB sign went up at the base of the coaster With the determination of a mountain climber, I climbed aboard this thing, hoping to do at least 50 trips all to help an old statue in a rejuvinated park.,
The first trip of the day had 2 guys in the front car, me in the middle, and the park hadn't even opened yet. Off we went. I had been on the old coaster a few times in my life, and in all of my trips, the coaster never got stuck. This time it did. On the far end at the peak of the turn...nothing. The guys in the front got out, opened up a little box on the walkway, and proceeded to paint grease or oil on the rails in front of the ole' Cyclone. Then they started to push it, running along side. It started moving and they jumped in for the return back to the gate. I thought, " This is not going to be a good day."
Seems that every day they do this routine because over night, dew would rust over the remains of the rails and the thing always got stuck on that corner.
A lot of people showed up that day, and every loop was another six or seven bucks for the statue fund. Fifty times around, and I was still going strong. The Holyoke police had security there, and at one point, my wife Linda, who had done about fifteen rides with me, said she was through. The cop said she wasn't going to give up so easily, so he hadcuffed her to the car she was in for another ten rides. The mayor showed up, took one ride with me and told me to bill him..
So here it is, late afternoon, and I have surpassed the 100 mark. Updates for my progress were being broadcast hourly on WREB and some folks were getting pretty nervous, as they had pledged a buck a ride, never thinking this nut job on the radio would do more than thirty circuits.
Early evening came, and WREB, a daytimer, signed off for the day at sunset, as I was finishing about 135. Some listeners were writing their will. I had yet to get off of this thing, no breaks, no stretching, and amazingly, no need for the little boys room.. It was dark, and I was ridin' for the statue .
The park closed for the day at 11 PM, and as the last trek of the creaky old Cyclone came to a halt, the locking hand rails went up and I departed the monster that had carried me around its loop one hundred and seventy four times. One HUNDRED and seventy four times. I never got off the thing all day. I could barely walk. I've never been hit by a truck, but I could now identify with folks who had been. I hurt for weeks, literally. I never wanted to be on a roller coaster again, and I never had been. The old, heavyset gentleman who ran the Cyclone had been doing so for over 30 years at that time, told me what I did, no one ever did before. One guy once did 100, but had to get off. It might have been Bud Stone, but he couldn't remember. The following weeks saw checks roll into the station, but not as many as I had hoped. Some folks just couldn't afford 174 bucks, and the guy who offered 5 bucks a ride probably moved and changed his phone number.
It came to about twelve hundred dollars I had raised, all of it going to the Parks & Rec Department in Holyoke, in a special fund called the statue fund.
Within a year I was gone from WREB, and subsequentle forgot about the statue fund untill about a month ago. It seems there is a girl in the area who is trying to raise funds to get the statue cleaned. Today, the cost is about the same as a new Ferrari. Back then it was about two grand I think..
I have contacted her and let her know about the now 27 year old statue fund that was never used. If it's still there, and if it is an interest bearing account, she might be able to buy the park itself. Time will tell.
This radio fundraiser was the only sort of frivolous undertakings I started. The others were pretty serious, and I'll tell you about them in another post.
If you remember Mountain Park or the Casino in the Park, my old friend Dave Fraser produced a fabulous retrospective of the park in 2002. You can find it by going to www.wgby.org . When you get there, click local programs and look for Mountain Park Memories. You'll even get to take a trip, through the program, on the old cyclone, and if you ever rode it for real, you won't belive the feeling you get going over that first hill. I know, I did it 174 times one day. I was also fortunate enough to be part of the program, and I speak about what you just read here. It was no big deal in retrospect. It was just another day at Mountain Park..