The Happiest Place on Earth

I could not resist. I finally broke down last week and purchased the Thomas Kincade painting of Sleeping Beauty Castle awash in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Magic Kingdom – the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California. I first saw the painting two years ago hanging in one of those ubiquitous Kincade galleries at the local shopping mall. In the unmistakable Thomas Kincade style, this “painter of light” depicted a glowing romantic scene at the Main Street “hub” in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle.

I marveled at the way he captured the scene on Main Street, then I glanced at the price tag and choked. Don’t get me wrong – Kincade deserves every penny for his talent – even if this was just a lithograph and not the original painting. I just couldn’t quite justify the expense for something that was just going to hang in my living room. And the theme of the painting was shamelessly kitchy. Only friends who shared my devotion would appreciate this homage to Walt and Mickey. The rest would probably gawk at the painting and gaze at me with pity, “You paid how much for this?”

Then last week my wife and I were wandering through the shops in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a touristy enclave at the base of the Smokey Mountains, when we noticed the obligatory Kincade gallery near the end of the street. Immediately I thought about that Disneyland painting I had seen two years ago and told my wife we should go inside and see if it was by any chance hanging on the wall. Sure enough – there it was. I took it as a sign from God that He wanted me to have it. This was my “do over” chance to buy it. Once again, I stood before the painting and lost myself in scene.

In the foreground of the picture stands children, parents, friends and relatives, all drawn to the golden light shining through the castle archway. In front of the drawbridge stands the bronze statue of Walt Disney beckoning to us with one hand and tenderly holding the mitted hand of Mickey Mouse in the other. The father of Mickey Mouse, Walt is fixed in a perpetual invitation to us all to share our family with his family.

The painting spoke to me. As my eyes studied the details of the scene, so much rang true, from the popcorn vending machine to the Mickey Mouse balloons to the impatiens hanging from the lampposts, to the drawbridge banners, to the purple sunset sky. I know that place. I know those people. I could smell the street. I could hear the calliope of the King Arthur Carousel. I could feel the energy of the crowd. Kincade had captured what Walt declared, and I knew to be, “the happiest place on earth”.

The painting now hangs in my living room, and I am perversely tickled to see my guests’ reactions when I proudly point it out to them. It is not Monet’s whimsical “Water Lillies” or a bold Gainsborough landscape. It is a painting of an amusement park. They don’t know quite what to say. They don’t get it. No matter.

My connection with Disneyland runs very deep. My existence has been twisted and shaped from a life of Disneyland wrapped around it, like the red stripe of a candy cane. Growing up in Southern California, the park and I were like comrades, childhood buddies, companions, friends, and allies. I was born in 1952 and Disneyland was born in 1955. Like brothers, we grew up together.
I spent my childhood and youth in the San Gabriel Valley, a mere 30 minute drive to Disneyland. The second week the park was open my family passed through its magic portals (I was not quite three years old), and for the next 50 years I made that journey over and over and over again. We watched each other grow up, mature, evolve, adapt, renew, refurbish, renovate, and endure. I rode its rides, ate its food, wiled away the hours, sought refuge in its recesses, retreated to its chambers. Within its boundaries I found comfort, inspiration and joy. I reflected, imagined, reveled. In my childhood I came with family, in my youth I explored alone, as a suitor I escorted my dates, as a husband I brought my wife, as a father I accompanied my children. (Here is a shot with my two kids in 1990 in a rare moment with Minnie Mouse). When I become a doting grandfather I will see myself in my grandkids as I chase them down Main Street and treat them to tales of the glories of Disneyland long long ago.

Now, over 50 years later, I look at my reflection in the mirror and ponder the journey. I examine my lines and wrinkles, the grey hair, sagging skin, age spots, and scars. I don’t look at all like I did in the carefree 1960’s. (Here I am at a recent journey to the Anaheim Magic Kingdom.)
Then I look at Disneyland and how she has changed over the years. She doesn’t look like she did in the 1960’s either. But then I have to remember she is over 50 years old as well. I guess we are both aging gracefully, but we are both under constant refurbishment.

Despite its age, people just don’t seem to tire of Disneyland. With everything else to do in Southern California, The park still averages about 14.8 million visitors a year. And I have single-handedly helped those numbers along. With a quick drive down the Santa Ana Freeway, I could be from my house to Main Street in a half hour. And, oh yes – you could call me a “regular”. I stopped counting the number of times I walked through the gates after 100 visits. One year I remember going to Disneyland ten times – maybe not a record by fanatic standards, but I could have been a tour guide by the age of 10.
(Here I am looking bored on the Carousel). I knew every drinking fountain, every bathroom, every eatery, the walking distance from the Jungle Cruise to the Matterhorn, the best places to catch a nap, the air time in the sky buckets, and the ultimate short cut from the Keel Boats to the Mad Tea Party.

But it wasn’t just my proximity to the Magic Kingdom that compelled me to repeatedly answer its siren call. I had a willing accomplice in my mother. She was 27 years old when Disneyland opened in 1955, but she was a complete kid at heart, and still is today. Last week at the age of 80 she sat down at a table full of kids and grandkids and played a rousing game of Loaded Questions until way past her bedtime. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t ready to play. Growing up, our closet was full of table games – Monopoly, Scrabble, Life, Chutes and Ladders, Parcheesi, Clue - and the king of all card games: Rook. Saturday night Rook tournaments at our house were legendary, even attracting our high school principal (who thought he was a genius) to compete with us. I have to admit, he did introduce us to the “double deck” variation to the game. It was necessary to play with two decks with so many people at the table, or else everyone would only be dealt five or six cards, but it was a bitch trying to keep track of two of everything. With two decks you were allowed to call for a partner, whose cards then became part of your joint holdings. “OK, I want the One of Green as my partner” I would call out, and hope his hand had more to offer in our quest for glory.

When we weren’t playing table games, we were at the movie theater, and Mom was right there with us. Her slogan was “You fly – I’ll buy.” With Mom as the bank, how could we refuse? She loved going to the movies, and recounted for us the movie-going “glory days”, when the gentlemen wore suits and the ladies wore evening gowns to the opening night of the latest Hollywood offering. Theaters were once elaborate palaces, with search lights marking their location, and audiences stood and applauded at the closing credits.

Until I was old enough to drive, I relied on my Mom’s zest for fun to serve as chauffeur. I can’t say for sure why Disneyland gave her such a buzz, but I suspect that her fantasy button was pushed with all the costumes worn at Disneyland. If nothing else, Disneyland is one gigantic costume party for grown-ups. Literally every employee wears a costume from Austrian lederhosen to Caribbean pirates to safari traders to frontier dandies. Even if you sweep up trash, you have to wear a costume at Disneyland. I loved to see all these grown-ups playing make believe, and I think my Mom felt the same way. You have to know one thing about my Mother – she was the costume queen of our family. She would sew them together and we would wear them, especially me. I think I was her personal costume guinea pig. When I was only five years old, she created an elaborate Dutch Boy costume for me to wear at some church program, complete with satin vest, puffy shirt, blooming satin pants, and actual little Dutch wooden shoes. (Here I am in my costume.) Where do you even go to buy wooden shoes?
When I was in the third grade my class put on a Spanish program for the school, and my Mom made a gaucho hat out of poster boards for everyone in the class to wear. For my high school costume party, the theme was “Alice in Wonderland” and my Mom sewed together a Mad Hatter outfit for me, complete with the oversized top hat. By the time I had graduated from high school our costume closet was a storehouse that would rival a Hollywood rental shop. We had colonial finery, wild west cowboy garb, witches and goblins, Indian maidens, medieval peasant rags, wigs, clown shoes, oversized glasses, fake noses, and hats galore. As you might guess, Halloween was our day to shine.

I am convinced my Mom came by this love of fantasy honestly. Her father was a bigger fan of Disneyland than any of us. In his retirement years, he could think of no greater delight than to sit on the front porch of Main Street’s China Closet all day long and watch the crowds walk by, a pastime he enjoyed at least once a week until he passed away in 1966.

My Dad, on the other hand, was quite the opposite of Mom when it came to play. I do not recall a single time that Dad joined us on a trip to Disneyland my entire life. He may have led the initial expedition to the Magic Kingdom when it first opened in 1955 just to see what all the hub-bub was about, but I was not even three years old yet and have no recollection of it. I am sure that once he saw it, he was satisfied that it was not for him.

My Dad grew up in the Depression and lived on a farm until he was 24. He came from a one-parent family: a mom with four kids that she could not afford to feed. So she split up the family, shipping my Dad and his brother Paul off to live with friends on a farm in another state. My Dad was only 12 at the time and I have no doubt his abandonment wound was deep. The farming life was harsh, with brutal hours, endless work, and little time for play. But he grew to appreciate the farming life, and determined that one day he would own his own farm.

But you need a lot of money to buy a farm, and my Dad looked around and saw that doctors made a lot of money, so in his tortured reasoning he decided to become a doctor so that he could become a farmer. At the age of 24 he entered high school, completing it in two years. He went on to complete college in three years. World War II was in full swing, but since he had lost a kidney in a farming accident, he was deemed unfit for the military, so it was off to medical school. In 1950, at the age of 35, he earned his medical degree, got married, raised a family, and somewhere along the way let go of the farm dream.

Instead, he turned his attention to saving Southern California from disease. He opened an office on Whittier Boulevard, in East Los Angeles, and became one of a dying breed, the doctor who made house calls. He was up and left the house before I was awake, and came home at the end of the day after I had gone to bed. It seemed there was no end of sickness that needed treating. To his credit, he ministered to the rich and poor alike. Many was the time he would be paid with a homemade dish of tamales when his patients had no money to give. Like Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, he accepted all forms of payment.

So, what did he do for fun? Dad was very selective with his free time. He enjoyed watching the Los Angels Rams play at the Coliseum. For several years he had season tickets on the 50 yard line, and I joined him for precious moments of one-on-one. But the Rams stunk back then. Roman Gabriel was the quarterback, and it seemed that his play book for every four-down series was to run the first two downs, then throw an incomplete pass, then punt. But I did catch the football itch from Dad, and followed the Rams until they broke my heart when they moved to St. Louis in 1995. Then, wouldn’t you know it, that’s when they became famous and won the Super Bowl in 2000.

Dad was a bowler. He and my Mom joined a bowling league when I was very young, one of the few things I ever saw them do together. But Dad was always on call for delivering babies, and he left his number at the bowling alley where he could be reached. Often the loud speaker would summon him to the phone, and he would have to leave the game and his fellow players in the lurch.

The one other thing my Dad did for fun was gamble. He loved Las Vegas, and settled on craps as his game of choice. He never won at the game, but could not be dissuaded by the house edge. I don’t know anyone who is a consistent winner at craps. I learned the game under Dad’s tutelage, and studied it for several years to understand the allure, and to take part in one of my Dad’s few recreational interests. But I finally gave up on craps. My Dad never gave up on the game. He played it into his 80’s, despite his conclusion that God did not want him to make money “the easy way”.

In the realm of “fun” there seemed to be a line that my Dad would not cross. He never joined the family at an amusement park, the county fair, the zoo, the circus, or miniature golf. Southern California is full of diversions, from the Movieland Wax Museum, Knotts Berry Farm, Pacific Ocean Park, Magic Mountain, Disneyland, Marineland, Seaworld, and Universal Studios, but Dad could not be enticed to burn up a whole day with any of these frivolities. I think he had a little boy inside of him that died a long time ago, and whatever remained could find no pleasure in these activities.

As kids, we tried over and over to talk Dad into joining us, but he always refused. And he did it without ever actually saying “No.” It was a clever yet diabolical side-step that disarmed me as a kid. As an adult I have practiced it and attempted it on various occasions, with mixed results. Here is what he did. When we would approach him with a request – any request – that he found disagreeable (such as “Dad, let’s all go to Disneyland tomorrow!”), he would burst out in feigned laughter, like he just got the joke. For added effect, he would squint at us as though to say, “You were kidding, right?” That was it. The request was handily disposed of by simply treating it as a laughable absurdity. We came to know that this was his way of saying no. We could pursue the request, since he had not actually nixed it, but we generally chose to leave things on good terms. For urgent requests, I might appeal the veto:

“No, Dad, I am serious.”

At that point his smile would usually fade and he would squirm uncomfortably as he would attempt to reason with me.

“You know we can’t do that.”

End of discussion.

Oddly enough, he never discouraged the rest of us from pursuing these ventures, and was more than happy to bankroll Mom and the kids for the diversion de jour. Eventually I realized it was the price he gladly paid for his freedom, that day and every day. This was a great sadness for me. It made every trip to Disneyland bitter-sweet. While I looked forward to the festivities, I always wanted my Dad to hold my hand and take me through the park himself. As far as the eye could see, Disneyland was full of fathers enjoying the day with their kids, just not my father.

So, with us kids, there was only one parent to persuade into whatever we wanted to do. With Mom at the helm it didn’t take much coaxing to orchestrate a trip to Disneyland. We had the money, the time, and the proximity. Sometimes I wonder how long it takes for other families to plan a visit to Disneyland? I have to smile at TV commercials I see today depicting a mother and father hunkered over a computer screen, making notes, reviewing the Disneyland website and reassuring each other, “Oh, yeah, we can afford this.” Some families prepare for months, some for years, to mount a 5-day, $1,500 assault on Disneyland. For my family, it was a $4.00 ticket book impulse. On a lazy Sunday morning at the breakfast table, we might look at each other and ask, “What shall we do today? The answer, more often than not was, “Let’s go to Disneyland.”

I would have to say that the only member of my family more smitten with Disneyland than me was my youngest brother Bill. He is nine years younger than me and came to the Disneyland “party” late. (Here he is on my shoulders at the park entrance in 1965). His first recollection of the park was at the age of 4. By then I was already a Magic Kingdom veteran at the age of 13. But he played catch-up fast. Grandpa needed a companion to join him on his many visits to the park, and Bill was always available. Over the years Bill fell in love with the place, and when he was old enough, he actually took a job at Disneyland for three years.

I loved hearing his stories of the inner workings of the park, the politics of employee assignments and promotions, and insider news of future park development. Bill was so hardcore that when he was studying to become a nurse, he seriously considered applying to Disneyland to join the park’s medical staff. Today, his living room pays homage to the Magic Kingdom, with framed Disneyland attraction posters, and his Christmas tree is surrounded by miniature Monorail track and a working Monorail train that circles the tree.

He and I share Disneyland stories and challenge each other with trivia questions. And we can get pretty esoteric. For example, how many rides at Disneyland have minimum height restrictions, and which one(s) have the shortest height restriction (Hint: the height restriction is only 36 inches)? Answer: seven rides, and the two with the shortest restrictions are Matterhorn and Gadgets Go Coaster. The ride with the tallest minimum height requirement is Autopia – you must be at least 52 inches tall to ride it alone.

Several years ago an imaginative economist wrote an article classifying all of America’s discretionary income purchases into eleven broad categories. They included such categories as entertainment, restaurant dining, vacation travel, clothing, and so on, and he showed how Disneyland has sought to compete for your wallet in every one of those eleven categories.
In other words, the Disney organization has determined that if you have a spare dollar, they want you to spend it with them. They will even host your wedding, and they have their own cruise ship waiting for your honeymoon.

Other than the graveyard outside the Haunted Mansion ride, about the only enterprise that Disney has not ventured into is the mortuary business. And I don’t know why not. It seems to me that some land should be dedicated next to Disneyland for the loyal following that have passed on, for a final resting place where their eternal souls can hear the rumblings of the Monorail passing overhead. Maybe it could be something like Arlington Cemetery, restricted only to the faithful few, like the Magic Kingdom Club Members. If such a feature were available, then with apologies to Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I would ask that they bury my heart at Disneyland