Errors Were Made

Happy Father’s Day!

Big Daddy Batiuk decided that today, we get to create our own strip.

Here’s my version!

Okay. So it is really just an error that, as of the writing of this blog post, has been up all day and never corrected.

It’s not the only error born of laziness from this week.

For example.

Wait…

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiitttttttt…..

You mean to tell me, Summit Beach Park was…ALSO…a real place?

OH FOR PETE’S SAKE

Sigh.

I want this to be a lesson to all of you out in readerville: never take the apparent depth of the ad-hoc ‘research’ that we do on this blog as a completeness of perspective.

I was one quick Google search away from avoiding an unforced error. And for a moment, when I read iansdrunkenbeard’s post, the dumb egomonkey part of my brain wanted to smile and nod and play along like OF COURSE I knew that Summit Beach was also a real place. But I decided to fess up. Because it’s an important lesson.

I had taken what I’ve learned about the way Batty operates and my own experiences and presuppositions and decided that Summit Beach was fictional. Because from my more modern perspective it seemed far fetched to me that in real life, less than 30 miles from each other, there would be two waterside amusement parks, with roller coasters and midways and boat docks, and named dance halls that burned down.

But I was wrong. The 1900’s through the 1950’s was a different time. A time of more local amusements. A time when you could have a crowd of ladies dancing arm in arm with each other and no one would ever assume that meant the Wisteria Ballroom was a lesbian hotspot.

Does this mean that I was completely wrong, and that the Chippewa Lake Amusement Park was in no way an inspiration for all the Lucy/Lil/Eugene shenanigans? No.

Not according to this lovely little youtube video I found… (From the ironically tited DinkLife channel)

The location of Summit Beach Park was redeveloped as housing in the 60’s. So, unlike the Summit Beach of the Funkyverse, there was no abandoned park lingering on and decaying for decades that Lucy or Eugene or Lillian could wander around. That part of the afterlife of Chippewa Lake Park was stolen for the fiction.

But, while the Starlight Ballroom burned down in 2002, the real life Wisteria Ballroom met a firey end much earlier.

(Don’t think about how Pam is canonically 76. It will only hurt your brain)

And yes, the Summit Beach Dance Pavilion and Roller Rink looks much closer to the comics.

Interestly the entrance sign used for the park sometimes would revert to an older reference. An Ayers error!?

Also of note, remember a couple years ago, where Eugene went to a somehow now open Summit Beach and tried to drown himself with a dilapidated canoe?

That also is seemingly based on real life now. As just this summer, after years of planning and a couple seasons of construction, there is now a small park with concessions, a pavillion and complete with kayak rentals open at Summit Lake again.

That’s nice.