When I was 6, I was pretty upset with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ First Secretary Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. The shoe-pounding commie B-word so-&-so was scheduled to visit the U.S. in 1956, an hour from our Chatsworth ranch.
OK. Fine. Détente and all that. But President Dwight David Eisenhower gave the green light for the Great Bear Mother Russia’s dictator to visit the brand new amusement park an hour away in Anaheim. I think the place was called, “Disneyland.”
The socialist peasant even got in for free.
Upset with my parents, I pointed out that the godless dictator was going to romp about The Happiest Place On Earth and I, a daily Pledge of Allegiance reciting/American flag-saluting first-grader — wasn’t. In fact, I wouldn’t see Disneyland until Grad Night, 1968, my senior year at Hart High, forever home of The Mighty Indians, put that in your pipe and smoke it you dullard woke school district trustees who recently changed the mascot name to the Cornish Game Hens or some such bird-brained handle.
Food was awful. Had an absolute blast.
Haven’t been back to Disneyland in 15 years. Heard the food’s still bad. And, expensive. Heard they raised the prices. It’s now like $12,500 to get in, $22,500 to get in if you have a kid with you and parking’s $27,500 as long as you don’t park on the premises. Illegal aliens? They get in free.
A wag on social media recently noted: “Do you know why Mickey Mouse wears white gloves? So he doesn’t leave fingerprints on your wallet.”
Except for the PC/Woke counterculture ruination tattooed on their product, sanitizing the aaargh-hoolie-hoolie woman-chasing Pirates of the Caribbean ride, a pair of cardboard mouse ears costing more than the Crown Jewels of England, lines stretching all the way to Central America and breathing the same air as an auditorium filled with consumption patients, it’s funny. I have nothing but wonderful memories of the place.
An epoch ago, I took my daughter, Indiana, to Disneyland for the first time. She was 5. Our first ride we boarded was It’s A Small World. I still catch myself humming the tune, smiling. We got off and Indy was ecstatic. Glancing back and, hyper-sharp kid she was (taking after her father), Indy noticed the boats were on a non-stop conveyor belt and people were jumping in. She asked — could we get back on immediately and go through again? I feigned confusion.
“I don’t know, Pie,” I said. “I’m not sure anyone’s ever done that before!”
My daughter made a little fist and punched the air. “Dad! WE’RE JUST THE TWO PEOPLE TO DO IT!!”
I LOVE that attitude.
Indiana and I would return a few years later. My best gal pal and sister-like substance, Leslie Ann, was there with her five kids. It was the only time all of us were together in the same spot. Joining us was our baby brother, Hondo, and, Les’ best pal and fellow former Hart cheerleader, Genene Doty-Staats. Indy was 8 and I warned her that Genene, one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest people to ever stalk this planet, didn’t like children. Genene turned, grinned and protested: “I LIKE children!”
All I could tell Indy was, “Yeah. Be careful. She ate two for breakfast …”
How we laughed.
Despite flirting with multi-generational financial ruin, I’m sure there are countless families, from across America, from around the world, who have enjoyed their own, wonderful memories at Walt’s kingdom. My dopey sister-like substance Tweedie visited the theme park years ago and fell in love with the Jungle Cruise ride. Tweedie — how should I put this — is Tweedie. Upon returning home to Montana, she wrote our brother Joe who worked there to ask if he could send some cuttings from Jungle Cruise so Tweedie could plant them in her Billings back yard.
Joe smirked and dropped a plastic flower in an envelope, mailing it northward.
Funny how you can look back and things tie together. I still blame Eisenhower, for letting Khruschev visit Disneyland before me in 1956. Years later, I discovered this sweet and amazing small-town Santa Clarita tale.
In August, 1962, Mrs. Welcome May Taylor, the quiet elderly Signal columnist who wrote under the byline of “Granny,” passed away. She was 81. While Granny wrote of children’s cute sayings and the happiness and sorrows of Newhall’s tranquil Happy Valley, few people knew of her friendship with the 34th president of the United States, You know. Ike? Dwight David Eisenhower? Both were born farmers, raised in Abilene. She was a little older, but they played together as kids. Their friendship continued over the years. It wasn’t until after her passing that Newhall learned of the World War II five-star general and commander-in-chief secretly driving into the SCV in an unmarked car, no entourage or press coverage. Along with a couple of Secret Service agents, Eisenhower paid unpublicized “tea visits” to Mrs. Taylor in her Newhall home. On Sept. 6, 1962, her daughter finished the last Happy Valley Happenings column with a tearful opening: “Mr. Editor, have you heard? Our Granny is gone. Sunday morning, Sept. 2, at 10:25, God called her …” After Welcome May went to her reward, her children shared the stories of Ike’s visits to his next door Kansas neighbor’s home in the little sleepy ranch town of Newhall, California. Taylor, aka, Granny — a newspaper gossip columnist — never published a single word about the U.S. president visiting Newhall all those years.
It just hit me.
What seems to be missing from Disneyland and Disney productions these days is what is so inherent in those sweet, innocent “tea visits” Eisenhower paid to Granny in the 1950s.
It’s called Americana.
Also missing in Things Disney? It’s something that feels like we haven’t been able to even utter aloud in recent years — the love of America …
John Boston, with more than 100 writing awards, is Earth’s most prolific humorist and satirist. Look for “Naked Came the Novelist” his long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch, coming this month on sale at Amazon.com.
