Walter Grishkot, co-founder and long-time organizer of The Adirondack Balloon Festival, had a saying: “A smile is worth a million dollars.”
There will be plenty of smiles to be found as we head into another Balloon Festival weekend.
Crowds came to the campus of Adirondack Community College, now SUNY Adirondack, in 1973 for the early morning launch to open the first Adirondack Balloon Festival.
“I just remember going up in the balloon and looking down and there were headlights down that road as far as you could see – people waiting to get in,” pilot John Marsden recalled in an oral history interview in 2010.
The headline in The Post-Star that weekend proclaimed, “Balloon Festival Fantastic.”
The newspaper reported that 19 balloons launched during the 2-day event, and there were no injuries or significant mishaps.
The only “incident,” if you can call it that, was when one balloonist landed in Argyle, a dry town, and presented the property owner with a bottle of champagne, the traditional gift in appreciation for being allowed to land.
Police were called, but as Walt used to like to say, “Kindness prevailed.”
Argyle police allowed the balloonist to dispense the champagne, and even had the balloonist sign the bottle as a souvenir.
By now, I’m sure that you are smiling.
To keep your smile portfolio increasing in value, join me in a look back at Adirondack Balloon Festival happenings from decades past.
Forty years ago – 1980
Adirondack Community College students in Stanley “Doc” Jenkins cooking class prepared the “World’s Largest Ice Cream Soda” to serve at the 4 p.m. launch.
“The concoction consists of 150 gallons of Pepsi-Cola donated by the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co., and 58 gallons of ice cream, donated by Borden Inc., Dobert’s Dairy, and Stewart’s Ice Cream.” The Post-Star reported. “The soda will be mixed in a watering trough donated by Fort Edward Agway, and lined with aluminum foil given by Leland Paper Co.”
Spectators could buy a taste of the soda, with proceeds benefiting Adirondack Balloon Festival, United Way, and the cooking class.
Thirty years ago — 1990
Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it a hot air balloon carrying the actor who portrayed Super Man?
Actor Christopher Reeve was scheduled to visit the closing day of the Adirondack Balloon Festival in 1990 to take a balloon flight with pilot Thomas Ford of Queensbury, The Post-Star reported several times before and during the festival.
It is not clear from news reports if Reeve did, in fact, take the flight.
Twenty years ago — 2000
The Food Channel cable television network filmed an episode of the show “Food 911” at the 2000 Adirondack Balloon Festival.
Host Tyler Florence prepared a picnic dinner of fried chicken, baked beans and potato salad.
Pilot Van Anderson of Morgantown, Va. transported the host on a short balloon ride.
Ten years ago – 2010
The conditions for ballooning looked excellent, both in the air and on the ground, for the opening launch at Crandall Park in 2010.
“OK – I’ll tell the people to come. … There will be thousands of them,” said Walter Grishkot, the festival’s co-founder and long-time organizer.
One who had already come was a woman wearing a vest covered with ballooning pins, an obvious veteran of festivals past. “That woman with all the pins, if she jumped in the lake, she’d go straight down (to the bottom)!”
Walt made his way around the park, telling stories, selling programs and selling posters, as he had done at 37 previous festivals. He went through the same spiel with everyone he met, laughing at his own jokes as if he was hearing them for the first time.
Poking a little fun at the ballooning team from Saga City, Japan, he asked, “OK – do we have anyone here from Brooklyn?”
The balloonists laughed – once the joke made its way through translation.
It would be the organizer’s last Adirondack Balloon Festival.
Grishkot died on May 11, 2011, at age 85.
Portions of this column are excerpted from Thompson’s 2011 book “The Biggest Kid at the Balloon Festival: The Walter Grishkot Story,” available locally at The Chapman Historical Museum gift shop.
MAURY THOMPSON
Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star for 21 years before he retired in 2017. He now is a freelance writer and documentary film producer specializing in regional history. Thompson is collaborating with Snarky Aardvark Films to produce a documentary about Charles Evans Hughes and the Adirondacks, which is expected to release in September 2020. See the trailer here. Read his full bio here.
