BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- David Kaman of Bay Village may be one of Cedar Point's biggest enthusiasts, and he has a Cedar Point memorabilia-stuffed room in his home to prove it.
Kaman has a collection of more than 1,000 Cedar Point post cards dating back to the early 1900s. The post cards, neatly tucked into individual plastic slips and bound in photo albums, are scrawled with messages that recall blissful, contented days at the amusement park through the park's history.
On the towering bookcase in Kaman's Cedar Point room - so tall that it has an attached rolling ladder to reach the top shelves - is a gold-colored sand pail with matching shovel that dates back to the early days of the Hotel Breakers at Cedar Point.
"This pail is from the early 1900s," says Kaman, pointing to a pail engraved with 'The finest bathing beach in the world' and matching shovel he found at an estate sale in Findlay about 25 years ago.
Kaman is a season passholder who has been among the first to ride the park's most wicked roller coasters, including the Raptor, the Mantis, and this year's 223-foot, 75-mile-an-hour Valravn coaster.
His home, which feels like a cross between museum and a gift shop, includes a top-shelf assortment of wood carvings that include animals, a totem pole, a boat and other figures.
He says every year a wood carver at the Frontier Trail at Cedar Point makes about a dozen of one item. "It takes him all summer," says Kaman. "Every year the first one he makes he sells to me. It's just a friendship that we developed.
Tucked on the highest shelves of the bookcase in Kaman's home are five wood miniature replicas of riverboats that once floated in the Cedar Point lagoon.
In an amazingly orderly arrangement, the 15-foot-high or so bookcase is further brimming with newer and historic Cedar Point-themed plates, drinking glasses, mugs, bottles, buttons, photos, coupons for rides dating back to the 1960s, Halloween memorabilia and much more.
Kaman has a sign for the Blue Streak roller coast at Cedar Point. Large Cedar Point banners and smaller pennants decorate the walls, along with colorful park maps dating back to 1960.
What ignited Kaman's fascination with Cedar Point?
He grew up in Sandusky and got a job at the theme park in 1973, when he was 18.
"I was hired to change light bulbs. I worked from eleven thirty at night until eight in the morning changing bulbs. I got to see a completely different side of the park because I saw it at night," he says. "And I felt like I was the first person in Ohio to see the sun come up. At the crack of dawn it was so still."
His family spent many delightful days at Cedar Point, says Kaman, an attorney with three grown sons. Of all the memories in his collection, his favorite is a picture of his mother on a carousel horse taken in 1931.
"Since I was 7 years old we went there every year," he says.
Want to nominate a Cool Space?
Kaman's father collected Cedar Point postcards, but Kaman has taken it way beyond his dad's level of enthusiasm. Over the years, the younger Kaman has combed estate and postcard sales with the purpose of snaring Cedar Point souvenirs.
"These postcards and other things represent hundreds and hundreds of hours riding around with my three sons to garage sales and postcards shows," he says. "We'd be on like a scavenger hunt for Cedar Point things. Sometimes I'm just at the right place at the right time."
But he also had an inside advantage for acquiring Cedar Point goodies.
"When I worked at Cedar Point a lot of my co-workers ended up going into management positions," he says. "They would call me up and say, 'Hey David we're getting rid of some old signs. Do you want one?' This past year they took down lights posts from the 1900s. I'm hoping to get one. They're very ornate."
For the most part, Kaman's collection is neatly contained to his Cedar Point Room, but 400 mugs are stored in his garage.
Lots of people have asked why he doesn't hunt for Cedar Point items on eBay, but what's the fun in that?
"To me that takes the fun out of it," he says. "I like to interact with people when I'm looking for things."
Kaman says even today, visiting Cedar Point brings the same thrill that he felt as a child.
"I just fell in love with the park, and the people," he says, adding no matter what problems you have, "you don't think about them when you're on a roller coaster."