Abandoned in the Magic Kingdom

Disneyland was both a rite of passage for me and an ongoing annual family pilgrimage. When I was a child, this tradition was a once or twice a year excursion and the anticipation of arriving at the park grew with each mile dad slogged on the freeway. We began our visits at a time when the crowds were minimal (by today’s standards certainly) and when men sometimes wore sports jackets. The picture here shows my mom and dad as children themselves with my sister and, oh yeah, that little bug in front was me. Damn I was cute! This is Frontierland where my dad’s favorite thing to do was go to one of the two shooting galleries they used to have there. This was to become a father/son bonding activity as dad would bring me with him and plop down quarters on the countertop for us. Dad stood on terra firma and I on the little wooden boxes that were there for the smallish Davey Crockett’s so we could get cartoon frogs in our crosshairs better. As I write this, I am struck by how much more important those moments were than I initially ever gave thought to.

When we would arrive at the park, in those days, we would park in the Disneyland hotel parking lot as mom declared the first ride of the day would always and forever be the parking lot tram. The tram would pick us up and drop us off at the ticket booths at the front entrance. In those days the ticket booths were right there at the entrance gates where you would pass thru a turnstile and face a floral Mickey head that was a portend of a wonderous day to come.

My parents were evermore the wide-eyed children and to share my childhood with them having just as much fun as I did, was an incredible time in my life – one that I am sorry to say as an adult that I took far too much for granted.

Along the way of many Disneyland outings, I established myself as one who could get lost in the joyful experience or simply get lost. Let me explain with two small recollections. The first, remembered vividly, was a time at the park with my family. I was dressed fully in a red child’s sweat getup (red long-sleeved pullover top and red elastic banded long legged pants). Oh, the humiliation at age 5, oh how devastatingly embarrassing, oh how… wait, isn’t that Tom’s Sawyer’s Island?! (humiliation quickly disappears when you are immersed in wonderment!) We all smooshed together on one of the many rafts that taxied back and forth across the Rivers of America. The island was in sight although, playfully I imagined many moons away, on this adventure where I would show my inner Juan Cabrillo. I guess my inner Huck Finn would be more of an apt description. I was crazed with the desire to reach those distant shores and run through what seemed like miles of caves, explore Fort Wilderness, cross mighty suspension bridges and pontoon paths made of whisky barrels crossing vast swaths of horizonless seas. Get me off this raft!!! I can’t wait!

My parents admonished me to stay ‘close by’ as, not only was the Island vast (to me) but, inhabited by many other excited families and to become separated might be a permanent condition. This exhortation blew threw the caverns between my ears, that space had been emptied out to take in the rush of waterfalls, the distant sound of pirate ship cannon fire and the guttural sounds of grizzly bears just around the bend.

I wormed my way through jumbly caves that at points narrowed to such a smallness, surely I would get stuck if I dared! I dared, squirming passed rocky outcroppings, swiftly spiraling up what seemed natural rock steps to higher ground to eventually emerge at the spire precipice complete with spiked flag planted by none other than Tom Sawyer himself! It was exhilarating  – such a rush, such a sense of adventure of bravery, of daring do! Then, all of a sudden, I snapped out of my self-congratulatory sense of accomplishment to a new island discovery – my parents were nowhere to be seen. I simply lost track of time and them as well. I panicked! I started shouting, “MOM, DAD!” I felt my heart rise into my throat as I retraced my steps and raced all over the place. My heart no longer just rose but was beating like a rug being feverishly whipped to remove dirt. They couldn’t possibly think I wasn’t worth the wait and left without me? Could they? As I raced around in a panic, some kind strangers took note. A couple with their own brood told me not to worry. They would take me to the raft landing and there I would find my family they assured me. I don’t recall with vividness this part of the story but suffice to say, I was crying and pining for my wayward parents.

The raft pilot told me to stay on the raft with him to go back and forth across the water. That my parents would have to come this way and they would most assuredly find me. So, there I stood, moistened eyes looking out at a big world that would easily keep me from ever seeing my parents again. Back and forth I rode the raft wondering how I would make it on my own in such a big world, missing the familiar hugs from my mom and dad. But as fate would have it, the raft pilot’s logic, as sound as any explorer of the seven seas must have, was correct. My parents apparently looked out to the rafts crossing back and forth. I was told it was not too difficult to spot me as my little elfin red get-up was a feature that was hard to miss. My parents eventually met me on my umpteenth trip across the river and I could not have been more relieved. They reminded me that I was not to run from their sight ever again and with a commitment of the most devoted pledge to Heaven and Earth, I vowed never to leave their side again!

… until they left mine!

It was many years later, another family trip to the Magic Kingdom. My little brother was now old enough to be out of his stroller and I enjoyed sharing my young man’s heart with his younger one. This time out, we were here with not only mom and dad but mom’s parents as well. It was decided that dinner was finally in order after a most wonderful day at the park. There was a Mexican restaurant in Frontierland that was buffet style as many of the larger park restaurants were. You grabbed a tray and slid it down the rails picking up or passing by what was on display. There were so many people that my mom felt we should ‘hold a table’ for our group of seven, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, my sister, my brother and me.

Mom showed me to a table that would be suitable out in the festive Mexican plaza adjacent to the restaurant. She told me to stay with my brother at this table and that once the adults were through gathering burritos and Mexican salads, et al., they would come to the table that I was holding. With that mom turned away and disappeared into the throng.

I sat at the table with my ‘baby’ brother who looked up to me, his big brother, to make sure the table holding was executed according to plan. We dutifully sat waiting for our family and dinner to arrive. I looked out at the plaza. Wasn’t it getting darker? How much time had passed? Didn’t that family getting up over there just sit down? There were still so many people coming and going. I told my brother to sit there for just a few more minutes and I would be right back. I got up and took in the pulsing masses of enchilada bound people. With my short stature, I didn’t realize when sizing up the crowds, it would be impossible to see anyone’s full height and therefore the faces of those bustling about. I’m sure I probably stared right at my entire family in line, but didn’t realize it.  In an instant I sized up the situation and returned to my baby brother who knew I would protect him through thick, thin and refried beans. I looked at him and straight out told him my conclusion. “We’re lost!” Of course, this was incorrect – we were right where we were supposed to be but somehow in my nascent brain, I worked the syllogism and incorrectly concluded the family couldn’t find us and they were panicking trying to locate their precious brood.

I grabbed my baby brother’s hand and bravely told him I would take care of him and would valiantly find our missing family. We wandered off together, my face turning back and forth examining every face we passed. It was hopeless. I approached some park employee and explained our plight. This person took pity on us and walked us to Main Street and into the lost children’s barracks where all soon to be orphaned at Disneyland children go. We sat on a bench and began waiting. Interestingly, at that time, there was a television show featuring the “KING FAMILY”, a gigantic ensemble of singing parents, children, cousins ad nauseum. I recognized one of the children from that show sitting on a nearby bench. I realized that not even fame can save you from amusement park abandonment.

I do remember the Disney people manning this way station were kind and caring. I remember them offering us drinks and food and talking to us assuring us that families get separated all the time at Disneyland. I thought, well, that certainly shouldn’t be part of any marketing campaign! So, we sat and sat. It seemed the staff had more confidence in my family finding us than I did. But they were correct. Eventually a worried pair of parents who hadn’t had a bite of Mexican food that night, made their way into the lost children barracks. Hugs were inevitable. Though after some moments of sharing their gratitude with the barracks staff, I had to ask. “Why did you abandon us?” This of course initiated some mind-bending explanation that it was my own actions that caused the whole undoing.

You know, somewhere, in a kid’s inexperience of large-scale adventure, his inability of sensing times’ passage, his ill formed understanding of grownup logic, there is room for miscalculation. These totally unplanned sidesteps in our magical days at Disneyland as a family helped in many ways to inform the person I’ve become. Today I would do anything to be lost once again only to have my parents, both of them, find me once more.

Thanks mom and dad for making magic come true in my life and oh yeah, for our gazillion times at the Happiest Place On Earth.