Willow
HAND-LETTERING
The year is 1945, summer is in full force at Willow Park, a small amusement park and public pool in Butztown, Pennsylvania. It is nickel Tuesday, 5 cents for entry, and the air is filled with the scent of fries and vinegar and the sound of screeching children on the Wild Mouse ride. Shirley, a 16 year old local, is crushing over Giovanni, a child of Italian immigrants who works at the ticket booth of the park. Shirley longed for a summer of love, and with the freedom and fun that Willow Park provided for her, there was nothing stopping her.
Shirley stands in the woods with the crunch of the Autumn leaves beneath her feet in her old stomping grounds back in Butztown. She looks at the abandoned amusement park as warm salty tears begin to fill her eyes and memories of the once lively Willow Park flood her mind. A place that hosted her first love, her first glimse of freedom, and a large part of her childhood happiness, gone forever, left only as a pile of wood. Shirley and her friends grew up and grew old, just as Willow Park did. Shirley once felt that she and Willow Park would live on forever, but as life moved on, she aged and so did her favorite childhood memories.
A swig of Willow floods back the nostalgia of your teen years. Willow’s taste and brand remind you of sneaking out to meet your first love. It reminds you of the newfound freedom you felt when you finally turned 16 and the laughter you experienced with your friends by the ferris wheel at the local fair. You grew up and you grew old, but the memories of the care-free days live on forever.
