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I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to experience. I mean, I was 42 years old, less than a month away from turning 42, and I was about to do something many people have done by the time they were a teenager. I had done very little research to prepare me for the day, but as I look back on it, I’m not really sure how much research would have helped.
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I’m Darrell Darnell and this is episode 682, “Getting To Your Happy Place. Fifty percent of new businesses fail within the first five years, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.
Living in middle America in the land many consider fly-over country isn’t all bad. I mean if you like beaches or mountains I suppose it’s not great. The nearest beach is Galveston, Texas eight hours away and we’re about nine hours from Pike’s Peak if you like the mountains. But if theme parks are your jam and you want something more than a small local park, Six Flags Over Texas is the place to go. As a kid and young adult I made several trips to the park, and always had a great time. That is, except for my last visit in my mid-twenties with my wife. It was a miserable experience for both of us and I figured I’d finally aged out of enjoying theme parks.
However, after visiting Anaheim, California three or four times on business, seeing Disneyland across the street, and never buying a ticket, I decided that whenever I visited Anaheim next I would give it a go and see what all the hoopla was about. And that’s exactly what I did. That day was January 29, 2018. I know this because of a memento I took home from the park that day.
That day was incredible. From the moment I walked into the park I was captivated. The landscaping: immaculate and beautifully thought out. The streets and sidewalks: spotless. The rides: expertly themed. The music: perfectly placed and blended throughout the park. Everything everywhere was so perfectly thought out and immersive. It was truly the happiest place on earth!
That day I experienced as much as possible, knowing that I also needed to spend part of my day at California Adventure. But this is a story about Disneyland and its treasures. From Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, to the Matterhorn, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Splash Mountain, and Jungle Cruise. It was all more fun, immersive, and captivating than anything I’d ever experienced at another theme park. It was such a different experience that it felt like a whole new category of theme park.
As I stood in the captain’s nook high atop the Mark Twain Riverboat, piloting the boat around the bends ringing the bell and sounding the whistle, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Core memory activated.
Since that day I’ve had the pleasure to make many return trips to Disneyland. I’ve taken one-on-one trips with my kids, I’ve taken our whole family, I’ve even taken one of my friends from New York. Every single experience has been incredible. Even the food is next level and absolutely delicious.
But as I stood there in the park on that first visit, I assumed that what I saw around me was largely what people had been experiencing since the park opened. I imagined that what I was experiencing must be nearly identical to what those who were there on opening day must have experienced.
I was very wrong.
Opening day at Disneyland was a hot mess…literally. The park opened on July 17, 1955 and it was so hot that asphalt which had been laid the previous day was still soft. So soft, women’s heels were sinking into it. Can we just pause and marvel at a day when women wore dresses and heels to a theme park and men wore full suits?
But the asphalt wasn’t the worst part of the experience. Due to a plumber’s strike, Walt had to choose between working toilets and working water fountains. He chose toilets, but this meant guests were forced to buy drinks to help quench their thirst from the hot sun.
While the park could hold 18,000 guests, nearly twice that many people attended. Thousands were snuck in by using a ladder to climb over a fence, and thousands more were mistakenly allowed in because of unknown counterfeit tickets.
This led to incredible overcrowding, long lines, and worst of all, the park ran out of food. On top of that, several rides in Fantasyland broke down, people were tripping over all of the cables from the television cameras, and the park was understaffed. The day was so bad, it became known as “Black Sunday.”
But that’s not all that made my experience different. Today when you visit Disneyland, you have over 50 rides and attractions to enjoy. On opening day, that number was less than twenty. Some lists I’ve seen say it was less than 15, and those lists exclude Casey Jr. Circus Train and Dumbo the Flying Elephant, which each opened later that summer in 1955.
Many look at that opening day as a total failure and rightfully so. That day fell well short of Walt’s vision and standards. And yet today, it’s considered the happiest place on earth. It’s certainly my happy place.
On that Black Sunday in the midst of the chaos, failed plumbing, and broken rides, a reporter asked Walt when the park would be finished. Walt famously answered, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”
Here’s what I learned.
The more I learn about the process of envisioning, planning, building, and opening Disneyland, the more I get inspired. That train wreck of a first day reminds me that our ultimate outcome isn’t defined by a bad day, poor execution, or unpredictable circumstances.
Make no mistake. What Walt pulled off on that hot July day in 1955 was nothing short of a miracle. That there was so much to offer the crowds, that there was running water, electricity, roads, and other infrastructure to the park was a monumental achievement, and that’s not even considering the extraordinary work done to create the park itself and all the attractions it offered.
And yet, it wasn’t even close to what the park experience is today. Over the years the park has improved in infrastructure, ride experience, ride selection, food quality, character costumes, ambience, landscaping, guest services, and nearly every way imaginable.
It reminds me that when we give our best, we can accomplish incredible things, that the best we’re capable of today won’t compare to the best we’re capable of tomorrow, but only when we commit to excellence, perseverance, imagination, creativity, and hard work.
Think about it, Matterhorn Bobsleds, It’s a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure, Star Wars land and SO MUCH MORE have been added since the park opened in 1955. To many of us, THOSE are the rides that DEFINE Disneyland. And yet they were nowhere to be found on opening day.
Like Disneyland, our lives and what we can accomplish with them, our skills and what they enable us to do and create, and our other interactions that make up our day to day connections are not complete as long as there is imagination left in us.
As Walt addressed the crowd on opening day he said, “Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America — with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”
And when we live our lives with the same ambition and dedication to improvement as Walt, we become a source of joy and inspiration to all the world too. You’ll never know how much impact your dream can have on the world and those you love most, if you give up.
In 1967 a new attraction was added to Disneyland that was later moved to Magic Kingdom where it still resides today. That attraction is called Carousel of Progress and I think the lyrics to the song from that attraction are a fitting conclusion for today. Written by the Sherman brothers, the lyrics are:
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow’s just a dream away
Man has a dream and that’s the start
He follows his dream with mind and heart
And when it becomes a reality
It’s a dream come true for you and me
So there’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Just a dream away
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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