Touching The Buttons

Posted On January 3, 2025

My Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Button Quest

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I penned a story several years back titled “Don’t Touch the Buttons” regarding an incident in which a particularly snobbish & rude Saranac Lake Winter Carnival kiosk clerk ripped a box filled with old Garry Trudeau winter carnival buttons from my hands and hid it behind the store counter out of my reach, scolding me as if I was some sort of mentally impaired child as he did so with the words:

“Don’t Touch the Buttons!”

It still to this day was one of the most humiliatingly infuriating moments of my tongueless 3x cancer survivor’s adult life. The whole incident made me feel like some sort of leper. I’d likely be in prison right now if it weren’t for the immediate intervention of my wife, who, for anyone who might think I exaggerate, was right there beside me, bearing witness to said incident.

Summoning every last ounce of self-restraint in my being to keep myself from creating an immediate Saranac Lake Winter Carnival staff vacancy, I instead threw the small handful of pins that I HAD managed to touch across the kiosk counter and walked out.

I vowed in that moment that I would make it my life’s mission to collect a complete set of Trudeau carnival buttons.

And touch all of them.

Any time that I want to.

I had a few buttons already when my quest began in earnest. I’d purchased several, including Mr. Trudeau’s 1981 button (the 1st in his series, also my SLHS graduation year), earlier that same Winter Carnival, at the very same kiosk, from a different store clerk, by rummaging through the very same aforementioned boxes full of old buttons, which had been to that point in time sitting on the floor with a sign that simply read, “Winter Carnival Buttons, $5 each”.

Over the course of the next few years, I slowly built my collection. Some I picked up at ensuing Winter Carnivals, at the kiosk, which had since been moved across the street to a building next to the Ice Palace. Someone had built a display case with a list of which buttons were available for purchase. As a result, there was no further need to rummage through pin stuffed cardboard boxes.

Surprisingly, not all the past years’ buttons were available through the carnival kiosk. I managed to buy some of them online through Ebay. Some years proved harder to find than others. Even for recent years, online folks were asking a good penny for them.

Undeterred from my mission, I slowly whittled my missing Winter Carnival buttons list down to eleven. I even visited the Historic Saranac Lake Museum’s “Make Your Own Button” event one year and designed three unique carnival buttons of my own.

Then, unexpectedly, I received a care package in the mail from my fellow SLHS ’81 (and Cornell- but that’s a WHOLE ‘nother story) classmate Pam Stanyon. In the package, alongside various & sundry other goodies, was a random collection of old Saranac Lake Winter Carnival buttons, including, as luck would have it, three more that I needed!

My mom had some time ago given me several pre-Trudeau carnival buttons.

So, in addition to narrowing my missing Garry Trudeau Carnival button list down to eight, I now owned a complete run of pre-Trudeau buttons from 1971-1980.

I now also owned SL’s 1957 carnival button,

As well a couple of non-Trudeau 1980’s buttons,

And a pair I have had no success attaching dates to.

I purchased one more Trudeau button from a Saranac Lake vendor on Ebay. Two years (2016 & 2021) had TWO buttons each. To my growing collection I added all four of them.

That reduced my compete Trudeau Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Button set quest to seven: 1984, 1990, 1997, 2000, 2009, 2010, & 2014.

After a futile effort over the course of the next several years to complete my set, I finally sought help through a FACEBOOK post.

Lo and behold! My prayers were soon answered! My friends at Historic Saranac Lake stepped up and responded, “Dick, we’d love to help you complete your Winter Carnival button quest. There’s a bag here behind the desk with your name on it. Inside it are all seven of the buttons you said you needed to complete your set.”

I was ecstatic. Not long thereafter, I paid the Historic Saranac Lake Museum a visit, and sure enough, true to their word, there was a bag there awaiting me. My quest was complete.

Not just that, but thanks to my brother Ray, I’m now even on the list each year for an SL Winter Carnival Button theme poster hand signed by Garry Trudeau himself!

I’m now #65 on the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival poster list. Garry Trudeau only signs 100 of them each year. I think that’s pretty cool.

So, as I look forward to a road trip home for 2025’s Winter Carnival (scheduled for January 31st-February 9th, 2025’s carnival theme: “Music Legends”), I now and forevermore have ALL of the buttons.

And I can touch them.

Any time that I want to.

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO