(The beginning of this memoir goes back to 1949 for those scrolling back)

                                               MY OWN PRIVATE DISNEYLAND

1962

     I quit school and applied for a job at Disneyland, presenting myself to the interviewer as a clean-cut college student, and was hired as a sweeper at the “Happiest Place on Earth.” I was issued a white uniform and clip-on black bow tie and handed a broom and dustpan and sent to scoop up butts and all small debris in Fantasyland, my territory as one of the employees keeping Disneyland spotless and wholesome for swooning, camera-toting tourists. My supervisor, Roy, was a clean-cut guy around 30 in dark slacks, dark string tie, black shoes, white short-sleeve shirt, with a chain of keys dangling from his belt and a row of pens in his breast pocket. He was an intense team player who immediately set forth to motivate me: “If you work out, Dell, there’s no telling how far you can go. This is the greatest place to work in America. You could end up a ride operator, or a supervisor, like me. Sky’s the limit!”

     Since Disneyland was non union, everybody was underpaid but supposedly ecstatic because it was a privilege and honor and a status symbol to work at Disneyland. I was paid $1.67 an hour to sweep. Right off I found myself gravitating to implement my new trade at an area close to the Fantasyland snack bar, which was operated by a crew of pretty college girls with chirpy, upbeat attitudes, like Dawn Meadows, who was engaged to a fraternity boy and informed me I was an “immature child who needed to grow up and be a man!” She refused to acknowledge me.

     Occasionally I spotted a lonely butt perhaps 20 feet from the snack bar and jetted across the near spotless pavement, niftily skirting tourists like a field hockey player, and pounced like a dog chasing a ball upon this butt and snapped it up. The snack bar girls found this entertaining. When the coast was clear of snitches, which Disney employed in touristy disguises, I swept in pirouettes, behind my back, or fiendishly swept at nothing, flying back and forth before their area while they pointed and laughed. Later, when I ordered lunch, they lay extra cheese and onions on my burgers and piled on the fries. Still, when I cornered them in conversation at the lunch area and asked them for dates, they backed off warily and made excuses while refusing to meet my eyes.

     These girls were interested in male ride operators and supervisors and there was a pecking order involved in the mating ritual, which included Snow White and Alice in Wonderland, two beauty contest winners that had the employees in shirts and ties fawning over them like pandering lackeys. I made it a point to ignore them.

     To keep my mind off the demise of my baseball career I volunteered to work 6 ten hour shifts a week and Roy was very pleased, though he warned me to cease hovering around the snack bar and distracting the girls who were there for customers only! Every evening I witnessed tourists oohing and aahing at the sight of the sizzling, soaring, popping constellation of fireworks filling the Orange County sky just before closing. The deadening, mindless job was transforming me into a detached, robotic dullard. I began to despise Disneyland and its contrived, aggressive PR campaign of wholesomeness. I made no real friends and sought none. I worked, went home, ate, read in my room, avoided my parents; spent my day off body surfing in Huntington Beach.

     One day Roy called me into his office. “Dell,” he said, bouncing up from his desk. “We think you’re a good worker, a real go-getter, great enthusiasm, we are happy with your performance, and we love it when our employees are happy, enjoy their job, but you seem to think having fun is your full time privilege. Our customers, who are precious, are the ones supposed to be having fun and are entertained by Disneyland, by the fireworks and rides, and our ride operators…not our janitors. You have to cease putting on a show for our customers, even if they do like snapping pictures of your…uh…act.” He issued me an understanding, uncle-like smile. “It’s not a good reflection on our park. Okay?”

     “Sure, Roy. Sorry. I get carried away.”

     “Otherwise, you have an excellent work ethic. We like you. Okay?”

     “Thanks, Roy.”

     We shook hands like earnest grown-ups. I became a model Disneyland employee.

     (Next Sunday installment: Angus again tries to set me Straight).