Bad postcards of the week:

Thrilling 'Stairway to the Stars,' or to the Busch Gardens roof
From:  The Grand Rapids Press

  I’m slowly discovering why Mickey Mouse is the patron saint of Florida.

Prior to the "mouseification" of the Sunshine State, tourism opportunities were shockingly limited away from the coast, especially if you were too big to ride a turtle or got bored by Ross Allen’s reptiles.

Things were so dull that riding an escalator was a big thrill.

This week’s bad postcard of the week takes us back to Florida and Busch Gardens in the 1960s before it was an all-out theme park.

The back reads: “Stairway to the stars,” longest continuous motor stairway ever built. Carries visitors over the reflection pool to the 86-foot high observation deck of the roof of Anheuser Busch’s twenty-million dollar brewery for a 'parrot's eye' view of Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida.”

Busch Gardens was famous for allowing parrots to fly freely and do what parrots do – so wear a white shirt – and the brewery tour, which featured free beverages.

I’d think the escalator ride would be more exciting after the free beverages, but I think the stairway came at the start of the tour, taking you not all the way to the stars, but to the roof.

“Look, Mabel. Those are some mighty big air-conditioning units.”

Pity the guard working the bottom of the escalator, seen here wistfully looking at people rising up, up, up. How many times do you think that poor guy had to say “Watch your step” during the course of a shift?

Naturally, I did some escalator research. I learn so much writing about postcards. The first were patented in the late 1800s, but they started to appear in the early 1900s. 

The biggest freestanding escalator in the country today? That would be at the CNN Center in Atlanta. But the longest is part of the Washington, D.C., Metro system.

And the stairway to the stars? Gone. The brewery was demolished in 1995 to make way for a theme park – presumably with rides that were higher, faster and provided more thrills than this escalator.

Reader contribution

Jonathan Morgan, who is responsible for our tortoise taunting photo, sent along this gem and provides our mystery of the week.

Is this deer alive?

The back simply reads: “Buck at a cool stream.”

“That has to be the most fake, dead, stuffed and mounted deer I have ever seen,” Jonathan wrote. “It's in awful shape. The fur is coming off. The eyes look glazed. The pose is unnatural. But it must have been nice for it to be out by the river in the sunshine again...”

What do you think, readers? Is our forest friend stuffed or just posing for the camera?