19 Years of Disney

-- Confirming the title of happiest place on earth



When I was 12 I went to Disneyland with my parents. I was in that extraordinary middle age, old enough to try any ride, wise enough to consider the opposite sex, yet young enough to believe this hat was an acceptable fashion decision.

If you're grimacing right now, guess what -- I was too! This picture was taken moments before we were to board Splash Mountain, a ride that required more manhood than I possessed at the time. I tried to talk my dad out of it -- "Don't you think little sister would rather go on Storybook again?" -- but my persuasive skills, like the slippery seats of the ride in question, were without traction. Too soon I was climbing the Splash Mountain hill in a giant log, trying to stuff my wide brim under my shirt, wondering how Disney got away with no seatbelts on this ride. It occurred to me that my experience with logs up to that point had been to flush them down the toilet, and as we reached the crest of the hill, my death mere seconds away, I feared my last human act would be to add a log to the log we were riding on, making the worst kind of Russian Nesting Doll known to man.

Somehow this was not the first time our trip featured my lack of courage and a rogue butt. Our family was split in three for the journey to California: my older sisters on airplane; myself, mom, dad, and younger sister in the lead van; and my brother and his pal following as part two of the caravan. Travelers madness fell upon me some eight or nine hours into the trip, and grasping at any chance of entertainment I pressured my sister into mooning my brother in the trailing car.

For a family prohibited from using the word 'suck' or watching The Simpsons, this was a drastic rebellion. My sister did it, by george, she did it and if you haven't been mooned by a four-year-old while driving through Vegas then you haven't known comedy, or so says my brother. I thought it was funny too but my mom didn't. She cracked down on my sister's rear and when my sister named me the mastermind of the plan I went mute to protect my own behind.

Displays of manhood would not be an issue the next time I returned to the park. The year was 2005 and my hair was at the peak of its powers, meaning I required no hat to conceal it and I had a girlfriend to enjoy it. Unfortunately this hair-power also meant that during a routine gas stop in the illustrious city of Victorville the girlfriend dragged me out back for a snog session.

When my roommate walked in on us he feigned the dry heaves, yet for some reason I wasn't ashamed like when Nathan Ballard intercepted us on the USU quad in a quest to film PDA couples frolicking in the grass. I had grown to accept that hair such as this could result in behavior such as that, and if one could kiss in public then he could certainly ride rides without crapping his fur.11. A phrase my sister-in-law introduced to me while we were at Disney of course. A man with a girl could not be afraid, I reasoned, and so it was that the heights of Splash, Tower of Terror, and Screamin' no longer held command of my heart.

Ah but cheapness did. Poorness did. This was the scenario under which I came to Disney for my third visit, during a 2010 Spring Break with Nathan Ballard, Nicole German, Caitlyn Ellis, and one Erika Nelson. We were a fivesome so limited on funds that we begged our friend Megan Low the chance to crash on the floor of her hotel. It was here that Nathan and I nearly perished sleeping on the cold floor next to an overactive AC unit, with merely a jacket between us as means of blanket. The next morning when we learned Megan and her pals had only allowed the AC to run because they feared we were too hot, Nathan almost cried. True tears would be shed an hour later.

Many students are cheap enough in college to sublet hotel visits. And many are cheap enough to book one-bed establishments where half the parties are forced to sleep on an office chair/ottoman contraption. But not many drive all the way to California, all the way to Anaheim, bum a frozen night's sleep at a hotel 3 minutes from Disneyland, walk to the park, walk through downtown Disney and up to the ticket gates only to decide after much hemming and hawing that they are in fact too cheap to enter the park. As we peered through the gates at Mickey's smiling face of flowers, watching families pass under the tunnel into happiness, I felt for the first time what the homeless must feel when I pass them en route to Jazz games.

"Nathan and Nicole's relationship will never recover from this," I vowed to Catelyn. "Nor will yours and Trebek's," she said, reminding me of the terrible fact that in addition to skipping Disney we were denied entrance to the Jeopardy studios just the day prior, forming a double whammy for the ages.

By 2012 my relationship with Trebek had been exchanged for one with a wife and the Disney experienced adapted once again. Instead of being convinced to ride Splash Mountain I was convincing my grandmother that riding in the front-most seat was the safest way to avoid getting soaked. She fell for the ploy which means she may as well have swam the ride. In the aftermath, as my grandmother wrung herself out like a washcloth, my cowardly history returned and I pointed the blame at my brother-in-law. He did not get spanked like my little sister, but he did get a playful smack on the hiney from my mother-in-law who was high on Mickey Mints and mistook him for her husband. So traumatized was the brother-in-law he spent $37 on churros in the following four days.

And this is exactly what I love about Disneyland: it removes your inhibitions and encourages you to do crazy things.

So much so that on this same trip an otherwise sane person (myself) and his sane wife (my wife) ate an abandoned pizza at Redd Rockett's Pizza Port. Many questions arose as we pondered this orphaned slice. How long had the pizza sat there? How diseased was the person who first nibbled it? Was it a trap and am I the star of a caught-on-camera show I’ve never seen? How much did that one slice cost?

I knew the answer to the last question and that’s what ultimately turned me into an animal. Yes, I was mocked but my food choices proved superior to those of my father-in-law whose attempt to smuggle Tommy's Chili back to Utah exploded in his wife's luggage at the airport. Perhaps ruining her clothes with beans and meat was his plan all along, a jealous payback for the misplaced butt smack.

As of June 2017 cheapness was no longer my primary Disney concern. Turns out there are a lot of things you have to shield a toddler from in Disney: sunburns, texters-and walkers, father-in-law fart clouds, retro Minnie Mouse sightings, expensive toys, nap schedule violations, personal space invaders, and most dangerous of all, strollers known and unknown.

The stroller negotiations lasted two days and encompassed bribes of various nature22. Treats. Toys. Pizza. Phones. but eventually I caved and let Ellie ride in the vehichle unstrapped. Not two minutes later I jammed the front wheel against a curb and my daughter was catapulted into the road where a distressed passerby summed up everyone's feeling by yelling, "Oh shit!" He was nearly right, as the other log from Splash Mountain threatened again to visit this terror-struck blogger.

By fortune Ellie showed no signs of wear, and I guess it's better she be concussed than stabbed 100 times by a cactus as her cousin Bryker was after wandering our Airbnb shoeless. As I watched the boy's father pluck needles from his foot with the same vigor I apply towards my unibrow, I considered which is the bigger crime? Naming your child Bryker or letting him go barefoot at a home adorned with cacti?

Six months passed and we voyaged to the park for one more go. I’d never been on Disney trips six months apart or to Disney in December but thanks to a timeshare lure with a free trip hooked on the end I found myself accomplishing both tasks. I'll tell you this much: being in the happiest place on earth in the happiest month of the calendar aint bad at all. The decorated park showered Jackie with fake snow and wowed me with a giant Christmas tree, but I’m not sure my daughter noticed. Someday her Disney double-takes will be reserved for the decor of the season, or more likely the Chris Pine's of 2030, but on this occasion she had eyes for only one:

Soon Ellie will be the 1998 version of me, old enough to try any ride, wise enough consider the opposite sex, yet young enough to make her own regrettable fashion decisions. Until then my brain will hover on this moment of 32-inch innocence when my daughter met her hero and I learned Disney with a kid isn’t that different than Disney as a kid. For one the experience is real time, for the other it's vicarious, for both it's unforgettable. Much like the cliche predicted, I saw the circle come full over and over be it when I became the parent I’d always laughed at who takes 10 minutes of video of his kid on the carousel, or at night when Ellie would ask to go swimming even though I was dead tired, just as I had asked my dad 20 years earlier. He never said no and now I understand why.

Is this then the pinnacle of fatherhood? To relive the favorite moments of your life through people you like more than yourself? If so, being a dad does not disappoint. Roles change. Disney magic does not.