I grew up only about a half hour away from that Happy Place. Lucky me! But we'd only go about once or twice a year, because it was SO expensive! Something like $5 a person just to get in the gate and receive a little coupon booklet which included a series of tickets ranging from A to E. The A ticket was always just a throw away... You could use it to ride the Main Street trolley if you wanted to, but that was about it. I don't think we ever used those A tickets though because who'd want to ever miss the experience of actually "strolling" up and down Main Street?
The E tickets were of course "golden!"
I was lucky enough to snag a job there in the Christmas Parade of 1972, as a Snow Woman. A fun little experience, but certainly nothing to write home about...
Then in the spring of '73 I landed a summer job in the Main Street Electrical Parade as a Cinderella Dancer. I had no idea what would lie ahead that summer or how it would eventually alter my course. All I knew was that I'd be making money for a whole summer doing something I absolutely loved doing. Dancing.
But the summer turned out to be much more about dancing OR making money. In retrospect, I would have done it for free. It was one of the absolute best summers of my life.
What's funny though, is that I swear I'd been put in charge of caring for my little neice Chelsea during the days all that summer, but my journal clearly has me staying out until 2 or 3 every morning. So I guess that just goes to show you that the energy of youth is truly wasted on the young.
Anyway to start... Doug.
He was my dance partner. Well he and JoAnn... We were quite the awesome threesome!
The OTHER threesome was me, Doug and Linda (though we didn't spend much time together...) Linda was a butterfly from the Alice unit... who spent the whole summer fluttering her wings against my guy. haha Though in actuality he wasn't really my guy at the time, I had no doubts that he eventually WOULD be... This was of course back in the day when we had no real understanding of homosexuality, and every woman in the world was still totally convinced that if she fell in love with someone like that she could just somehow *snap* and change him. But to be fair, this was still mostly confusing territory, even to those who thought they might actually BE gay. I'm almost embarrassed writing that right now, but it's the truth. These were definitely the years of major discovery for many of us!
At any rate...
There was nothing like having the complete run of the Disney backlot staging area though we didn't spend a ton of time back there but it was nice to be able to just flash your badge and pass through the employees only gate leading back to the employee cafeteria, the Inn Between (where the food was really cheap) and the DRC (Disney Rest Center?). Mostly we spent our parade in between time either Ho-Downing in Bear Country or Swinging to the big bands at Carnation Plaza or New Orleans Square, or we were more than able to just enjoy the park and the rides. And sometimes I just spent those few hours pining away in the parade forming area during the times that "my boyfriend" was somewhere out in the park with Linda... *sigh*
Can you even imagine now being able to get two guests into the park any night of the week... FOR FREE EVEN (except on a holiday)! So I did that alot too, and in the meantime found out I had a lot more friends than I thought I had.
In the meantime, I just loved these boys!
Here's a funny story... I had this friend David, (who I talked about in my last blog and who was friends with Paul, who is the guy in the middle in that last picture up there). So anyway, sometime during the summer he ran into Paul and Doug on the beach together and the conversation started. "Hey! So what have you been doing? blah blah blah..." And Paul said that he was currently working in Disneyland's Electrical Parade. So David said "Wow! Do you know my friend Jannet? I hear she is completely in love with her dance partner, but she's pretty sure that he's in love with Prince Charming.." At which point Paul replied, "Um, I'm Prince Charming." Ugh.
Anyway...
And there were parties galore!
At The Disneyland Hotel for one...
It cost us a whole $37 just for one night!!!
Michael...
Me and Paul...
Most of the group... (that's Linda on the left.)
Our parties were WAY after hours... including the one at our house that mom never knew about... (this one wasn't THAT one.)
Doug and I head over heels!...
But back to the parade and the job at hand...
What a magical summer it was!
Just LOOK at him in those cute pink knickers!
I swear I will miss these people for as long as I shall live!
Tent City...
It doesn't exist anymore. There is now this huge parking structure standing in the place where it use to stand.
Here's a pic of the cast that was taking one evening late in the summer on that very spot. I'm pretty much front and center sitting on Paul's lap. Michael, Garry and Joann are one row up and a little bit to the right. Linda is two rows straight up from me. It was Doug's night off...
Taken from my journal... "Tommorrow is our last parade and I'm going to have to say goodbye to a wonderful summer and to some of the best friends I've ever know. I remember at the beginning of the parade saying "It's going to be a really long summer!" Well that's not true. It's been the fastest summer I've ever known... Doug is moving to New York in two days to join Gus Solomon's dance company... and I'm going to cry in about 5 minutes."
*sigh*
But funny how things turn out, because one of the very last things he said to me on that very last, very sad (for me) night of our summer was this... "I'm really going to miss you. Come to New York?"
And so well, Gee. I wonder how all THAT turned out...
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