The Squelchistani Crank

The following links lead back to the earlier parts of this blog post series: Part 1 ~ Part 2 \-\-\ Part 3 Details aside, Gene would sell the Vernon Valley property – including Action Park – to a Canadian ski resort conglomerate known as Intrawest, who was intrigued by the prospect of owning a ski resort that had a summertime amusement park included, even though they had no experience in running the latter. Nevertheless, they took over the property and agreed to pay off the outstanding lawsuits that Gene had on his person. Because the deal was made relatively late in 1996, there was no time to re-open Action Park for that summer. For that matter, through major insistence of the New Jersey state government and the citizenry of Vernon, combined with common sense, there was no push to open it up for 1997 either. Instead, Intrawest would spend that year modifying what they would rename Mountain Creek Water Park. The modifications to the amusement park and its connecting elements we...

The following link leads back to the start of this blog post series:  Part 1 \-\-\ Part 2 Whatever the details, Action Park remained a staple for teenagers and young adults during the Gipperistic Era in spite of the problems it produced for itself and others. Indeed, for most of that demographic the attitude was best summed up in two words that came from the original Action Park commercial: “Like, whoa!” But when the Gipperistic Era came to an end, that attitude became closer to “Like, no.” Very quickly during the 1990s transition period, Action Park fell apart to the extent that it went bankrupt in the spring of 1996, and Gene was forced to sell the Vernon Valley property, Action Park included. It does seem kind of odd that Action Park, going back to its earliest days, somehow managed to survive nearly a generation’s time of absurd nonsense to the point that it was effectively criminal (more on that in a bit). So why did it take so long for it to fall apart, and when it di...

Note: at the insistence of one of my regular readers and given that this is a LONG blog post, I have made the decision to break it up into three separate parts. Links to the sections will be added at the beginning and end of the appropriate blog postings, and the Sources Cited section will be listed at the end of the last posting. With that in mind, I shall begin… \-\-\ Part 1 As we move from spring to summer in Squelchistan, for the younger populations it means Summer Break and with it a chance to let loose from the restraints of education that had shackled them for three quarters of the calendar year (save for Spring Break and the Winter Holiday Break). That technically means a lot of travel and visiting people/places, even though at this time we still shouldn’t do so given that the Satan’s Breath pandemic is still ongoing and is expected to be a major issue until 2025 at earliest. Though I cannot speak for everyone, I have to imagine that a large percentage of the families...