Episode 6 – Tales from the Backseat
California here we are. After three weeks navigating most of the lower half of the US and a bit of Mexico, we finally made it to the golden west coast. And as any red-blooded American family, the first place we went was DISNEYLAND.
It was the mecca of small children and parents wanting to please their small children. I’m not saying we were raised in a “Disney” world, but their universe was hard to avoid. We saw their movies, The Apple Dumpling Gang and Herbie, the Love Bug in their mostly live-action era. And we were veterans of two trips to Walt Disney World since its 1971 opening. So, we were interested to see what differences the original 1955 flagship Disneyland had to offer.
At first glance, MainStreet USA was a carbon copy of the Florida version. And at the end of the turn of the century replica town, there was a castle. This one was a gleaming white Sleeping Beauty castle instead of the pale blue Cinderella version.
Initially, there were a few different rides, a bumper boat ride in a big pond and some place called New Orleans Square where the haunted mansion was a white southern plantation. Those I liked.
In this mansion, you walked the hallways and the paintings changed. My kid sister was scared and clung to my mom for dear life, but to me, finally there was some excitement. Although beyond that, it was another duplication.
Needless to say, I was unimpressed. Ride after ride, I audibly sighed, rolled my eyes and folded my arms across my chest while trudging through the lines with as much pre-teenage angst as I could muster.
I got the feeling my parents ignored a lot of my outward and annoying less than silent protests at being dragged through“kiddie world.” Finally, my dad had enough and gently redirected me to the side, while my brother and sister shopped for Mickey Mouse-eared hats.
“What’s the problem? Aren’t you having a good time?” He asked me with some frustration.
“It’s all kiddie stuff. I want exciting thrill rides. And it’s like we’ve been here before. Why did we come all the way to California for this?”
My dad paused for a moment and momentarily looked around. In that moment, I think he saw what I saw.
“OK. I get it.”
No more was said, but I appreciated that he understood my position.
When my mom, brother and sister came back from the store clad in Mickey Mouse ears, I rolled my eyes.
“We didn’t get you anything,” my little sister snidely remarked, as if verbally sticking her tongue out at me.
But my Dad was on my side.
“Let’s find a roller coaster. Didn’t the brochure say there was a roller coaster around here?”
My mom pulled out the guidebook and flipped through the pages.
“Yes. The Matterhorn,” she said, pointing to the imitation snow-covered mountain in the distance.
“Why don’t I take the older kids on that and you can go on the carousel?”
It was the perfect solution. Fun roller coaster for the pre-teens and mind-numbing horses turning to repetitively maddening calliope music for the little one.
As we approached the coaster, it became larger and larger in our scope. According to the guidebook, the Matterhorn was fifteen stories high where you and your careening bobsled experienced a series of fast-speed hairpin turns to eventually splash into a stream water at the end.
I could barely contain my excitement. Finally, a real ride.
Waiting in line, we were joking and having a good time. I was amazed at how enthused my dad was to ride this roller coaster. Through the long serpentine cue, he raved about all the fun times he had as a kid on the thrill rides in this amusement park near where he grew up in Chicago called Riverview.
My dad was a born storyteller. When he was enthusiastic about something, he’d weave interesting tales that would vie the movies Walt Disney made. While many times we were uncertain of his relationship with the truth, he’d spin tales and laugh at them, drawing us into his narrative. In the end, we didn’t care if they were true or false. They were stories, after all.
The closer we got to the front of the line, the screams from the riders and anticipation of the sheer thrill enhanced. And at the moment, I glimpsed a bit of the coaster track, I climbed up on the railing and wriggled to get a better view. I could see the bobsleds twisting and turning at such a high pace, I thought I could hear a whooshing sound as they went by. I couldn’t wait.
But when I tried to get down, I found my knee was stuck in the railing. I wiggled and pulled while huffing and puffing in distress with my already heightened adrenaline level off the chart.
“I’m stuck!” I shouted to my Dad in perilous panic.
Confused at first, he came over and tried to lift me up and pull me out of the railing. But nothing worked.
By now, quite a commotion developed among those in line, rubber-necking and gawking at the white-knee sock wearingyoung girl who was stuck like Winnie-the-Pooh in the honeypot.
Someone told the ride operators who called the Disney cops. Soon they ran through the line to my aid as a fervor raised to the level of high interest with bystanders, much to my horror and embarrassment.
The Disney cops were perplexed, as they stood there whispering to themselves about how to proceed.
My Dad, who was never at a loss for words, decided to lighten the mood with a joke.
“Well, officers, we could always cut it off,” he laughed.
My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. I knew he was kidding, but when the gathering crowd laughed too, I was mortified… and scared. How were they going to get me free?
By now, I was sweating bullets everywhere from fatigue and fright, as my other leg was still straddling the narrow rail.
“I’m sure her leg swelled a little from trying to get it out.” One officer, I’d say, Captain Obvious stated as if he were giving the Gettysburg address, but saying nothing helpful.
Then the other officer had an epiphany.
“Do you think we could pull her knee sock up over her knee enough to ease the friction and she could slide out?”
Smiling and nodding at the brilliant idea, the officers and my dad got to work. My Dad held me up on his shoulder while the two officers shimmied and yanked on my cotton knee sock to get it up. Finally, eureka! I was free.
Everyone cheered and applauded as my misshapen knee sockrevealed my redened knee, a little worse for the wear, but finally unshackled.
Still heaving my breath from the stress and pain, my dad, ever the salesman, asked the officers.
“What do you think fellas? Has she earned a trip to the head of the line?”
The officers smiled and escorted us through the line to the front where the ride operators ushered us into our own bobsled.
The ride was fantastic, just as advertised. Our heads bobbed as the force of speed shifted us up, down and side to side with the movement of the coaster to the end, when we plunged into the water rooster tailing on either side of us.
Laughing as we walked down the ramp at the ride’s exit, I saw my mother and sister waiting for us and a feeling of panic filled my body. My mother would be likely be mad and maybe never let me out of her sight again. Something a preteen did not relish.
“How was the ride kids?” my mother innocently asked.
But before we could answer, my Dad interjected.
“It was a fun ride. Like the ones we used to go on in Riverview. Right kids?”
My brother and I mindlessly nodded our heads quickly like bobbleheads and I pulled up both of my knee socks to hide the stretchiness of the one and cover my knee until the redness subsided.
And for the rest of our day in the park, I patiently waited in lines and rode the endless theme rides without the hint of complaint. Truth be told, it was a nice break… I’d had enough excitement for one day.
SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON 