And it comes out here!
Got to love this time of year.
Just a lot going on what with the holidays and all. Family, friends. Seems like there simply is not time enough to fit everything in, is there? Part of my challenge you might say…
If I ever get some time, I have plenty to share with you, loyal readers. Like the Walt Disney Family Museum and their new exhibit on Snow White. With a fantastic exhibition catalog and book about the film by J.B. Kaufman, too!
And this year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Which makes the Dickens Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco all the more merry. I survive the long opening weekend and promise to be back for the last three as Cuthbert’s Tea Shoppe.
Next weekend begins 20 days of Candlelight at Disneyland. Should be interesting to see if guests embrace it in the same fashion they do in Florida.
Beyond that, over at pinkmonorail.com, Shelly Valladolid will be sharing some of the oldies but goodies from the Blue Parrot when she sails off into the sunset aboard a Disney Cruise in December out of Los Angeles.
So, I’m not gone, just busy! And if time allows, look for these and more stories to come.
One of the little things
1965 – a nice night in Tomorrowland at the Circarama Theater sponsored by AT&T.
Photo by eBay user – Nicepictures
Turn back the clock for today’s musing. Back to years gone by. At Disneyland.
If you remember, where Buzz Lightyear now looks for Junior Space Rangers to help defeat the evil Emperor Zurg, used to be the home of the Circlevision theater. How many millions of folks watched “America The Beautiful” here?
Well as one would exit the theater, sponsored by AT&T, there was a series of booths off to the left.
Now as booths go, these were unique. Glass doors across the front of each one and benches inside. On the center wall, a futuristic touch tone key pad. With a coin slot.
What were these? Called Chatterboxes, they offered Disneyland guests the opportunity to phone home. Long before any extra terrestrial made it fashionable. Using a speaker phone, the phone call was not limited to the sole caller. A group could place their call and share their day at Disneyland with family and friends far away.
I don’t recall if our first family trip to the Park included such a call. But I have some very fond memories of calling my mother’s parents in San Francisco using one of the Chatterboxes. A number of times. And on our honeymoon in the spring of 1986, my wife and I both called home to speak with our parents from one.
Technology has come a long way. Cell phones allow instant communication world wide. Text messages or more can be shared as fast as you like. But back in the day, making that call from Disneyland was indeed a special moment.
In the overall scheme of the Park, it was one small feature. But it made memories for many guests. And that is the best thing that Disneyland ever did. And still does.
It doesn’t have to be grand and glorious all the time. Even the small things can bring magic to life.
Time Marches On!
As much as anyone who can claim to be a victim of “terminal nostalgia”, I miss things and places. I am not alone by any means and continue to be amused as folks take umbrage at changes.
For example, take a city I spent a good number of years in. Walnut Creek, California. Moved there in the summer of 1970. At that time, the big freeway to San Francisco was being completed. Rapid transit in the form of trains operated by BART had yet to see it’s first train turn a wheel in revenue service. And it was not hard to see the walnut orchards that gave the place it’s name.
It was for all intents a small town. Yet on the move. For when that freeway was done and trains ran into San Francisco, it would become a full blown bedroom community.
Downtown still had much of the small town feeling to it. Even though we had a shopping center, you could still park on North Main Street in a perpendicular fashion on the diagonal. The businesses all were local. Chain stores or franchises were not present. The city did not even have a McDonald’s.
It still had a railroad running through it, complete with a classic wooden station. Less than five years had passed since Walnut Creek was a two railroad town. The Sacramento Northern right-of-way was part of the route of BART under construction. Now the Southern Pacific’s San Ramon Branch remained. Still serving the cement plant just east of downtown. A locomotive was on duty here to keep cars moving freight to a few businesses along the line.
Just south of downtown was the Broadway Shopping Center, with JC Penneys and Capwells as the big anchor store. On one side you had Luckys in the grocery business and Safeway was still in a classic green and yellow tile structure on the other.
But within another five years, all that changed. An Army Corps of Engineers project rerouted the creek of the same name into a concrete box, all in the name of flood control. Much of that old downtown gave way as things changed. The cement plant gave up rail access and moved to the north end of town. Both Luckys and Safeway moved into newer stores. A seven story office building came into being, complete with a very controversial peace symbol showing support to end the Vietnam war.
Eventually, most of the older buildings that made up downtown were either dismantled or refurbished. McDonald’s did come to town and despite predictions of doom, became part of the lives of many. Both as customers and employees. The multiplex theater (a cinderblock nightmare) replaced the older one screen version. Even the old wooden plant which had processed walnuts found a new use as a civic arts theater.
As a friend put it, “Walnut Creek either sold or tore down it’s history.”
Today, some 40 years later, the little town is a city. Neiman Marcus, Nordstroms, Macys and Tiffany all have locations here. Upscale doesn’t being to describe it. Folks who used to shop at the Army-Navy Surplus Store instead do so at Restoration Hardware.
But things keep changing. That seven story office building? Slowly being demolished this week. That cinder block multiplex? Gone, replaced by another cinemaplex and the space it once called home now used by other businesses.
Yes, things change. That is the way of it. Be it Walnut Creek or Disneyland.
While we enjoy thinking of the past and the way it used to be, nothing lasts forever. Enjoy it while it is here but look forward, too.
For no matter how much we wish, we can not all live in the past. There just isn’t enough room out there.
A “Black and White” Day at Disneyland
With the great retro images online of the filming of “Saving Mr. Banks” at Disneyland this week, I was reminded of my adventures during the Park’s 50th. Rather than concentrate on images taken with the digital camera, I stepped back in my own way. Using film and the Brownie Hawkeye, just as my mother had on our first visit so many years ago.
It was a great experience. Plenty of people stopped and commented that they, their parents or grandparents used similar box cameras way back when.
This story first appeared on Jim Hill Media back on July 28, 2005.
One of the goals I set for myself was to try and capture images that might reflect what a typical guest day at Disneyland would have been like using the trusty Brownie Hawkeye. That meant looking for scenes that would fill the bill, out and about the Park.
Unlike other point and shoot cameras of today, getting your photo framed just right with the Hawkeye can be a real challenge. You don’t hold it up to one eye and look through the viewfinder. Instead you look down on to the top of the camera and through what is best described as a “cube” to frame the image. The image is the reverse of what you will capture thanks to the simple optics of the viewfinder. That took a bit of getting used to.
Thanks to all those years of photographing trains, a good deal of patience came in handy. There were many times I had to wait for the right moment to push the shutter button. But in the end, the results were well worth the wait.
Starting off at Main Street, we’ll head off into Disneyland!
We are indeed “Walking Right Down The Middle of Main Street U.S.A.”
Mickey is at the ready greeting guests and signing plenty of autographs today!
The view from Christmas Tree Point looking down Main Street toward the Castle.
The proud sailing ship “Columbia” has the right-of way passing the rafts to and from Tom Sawyer’s Island.
It is the true icon of Disneyland – The Sleeping Beauty Castle, as seen from the Plaza Gardens.
Attention Autopia Drivers!
Now what would a day at Disneyland be without at least one visit to a candy shop!
Happy guests? You bet! Lot’s of fun here in Fantasyland!
Hope you enjoyed more of these great views of Disneyland with a retro flair.
Obscurity Calling
No, that is not a reference to the recent elections.
Used to be, I posted a lot on Live Journal and that was the title of my blog there.
Found a good post there, one worth sharing here. Enjoy!
Got this from here:
http://trippytrivy.livejournal.com/53447.h
Rules:
– Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
– Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
– Post them here for everyone to guess.
– Strike it out when someone guesses correctly and put who guessed it and the movie.
– NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.
So here’s my take on it. Have fun!
1. “This is glue. Strong stuff.”
2. “Can you help out a fellow American who’s down on his luck?”
3. “Any world that can produce the Taj Mahal, William Shakespeare, and striped toothpaste can’t be all bad.”
4. “Now, sir. We’ll talk, if you like. I’ll tell you right out, I am a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.”
5. “I haven’t had so much fun since the day we put glue on Fräulein Josephine’s toothbrush.”
6. “All right, you win. You win. I give. I’ll say it. I’ll say it. I’ll say it. DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME! DESTINY! DESTINY! NO ESCAPING THAT FOR ME! ”
7. “You ain’t stopping at this hotel, kid. My hotel! The stars at night, I put ’em there. And I know the presidents, all of them. And I go where I damn well please. Even the chairman of the New York Central can’t do it better. My road, kid, and I don’t give lessons and I don’t take partners. Your ass don’t ride this train! ”
8. “Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it’s a whole different sex! ”
9. “Listen here Birdie, it may be a good day for you, but it ain’t for Pa. All the poor man wanted was a new tobacco pouch and instead he won a house he didn’t want and he got a bad sunburn. ”
10. “What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, then this scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.”
11. “There’s many a man alive of no more value than a dead dog.”
12. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. I’m thirsty.”
13. “Anyone who isn’t dead or from another plane of existence would do well to cover their ears right about now. ”
14. “That’s it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas. ”
15. “Ah, white men! Welcome to Hulahulanukanukaakoi-a-a-a-a Island.”