when i was four

one cold morning in november 1989, one month after my fourth birthday, my parents woke my brother and me up incredibly early, grabbed bags they'd pre-packed, and told us we were going to salt lake city, a short two hour drive, for the weekend.

not very excited, we slept the first four hours away, oblivious to the changing scenery and lack of arrival and stoppage in salt lake.  somewhere along the way, my brother, eight and half years old, must have realized something fishy was happening, and pried the truth from my parents.

in reality, this was a surprise family road trip to disneyland.

i can only imagine the endless minutes of screaming from pure excitement that must have poured from us, nearly deafening our parents in that small, enclosed car.

i can also deduce how impatient i must have been at four, taking into account that our traits generally soften and lessen as we mature, and how unabashedly annoying i had to have been for the duration of the ride thereafter.

sorry family.

over two decades later, my strongest memories arrive only in flashes and have been mostly supplanted with stories and the only scrapbook my mother ever made in my childhood.  but isn't that how our personal histories always play out?

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the things i know for sure:

.cool, grey metal, associated with that falling feeling we get on roller coasters.

.dropping a penny through the thin wooden boards of a footbridge, and staring up into the infinite sea of immeasurably tall adult heads to report the mishap.

.a terrifyingly long line, for some seemingly important reason.

.sheer terror at mickey's face.

the things i know from countless sunday afternoons spent avoiding dusting the living room by immersing myself in the watts family disney scrapbook:

.dumbo's flight.  an undying love of dumbo, born of years of consecutive watchings with my daddy, videocassette thrust into his arms the second he walked in from work, demanding to played, logically ending in half a dozen dumbo rides over the course of four days.

.swirls of multicolored sugar.  giant lollipops leading to sticky fingers grasping mickey mouse ears, embroidered with our names, worn while jumping on hotel beds.

.stacks and stacks of pancakes.  two picky palate's forcing the hand of choosing restaurants that would be sure to sell both pancakes, for her, and hamburgers, for him.  a week of two children eating one food and one food only at every meal, excepting for the two hour line leading to the turkey meal on thanksgiving evening, wherein the family dined on a traditional feast, yours truly fell asleep and enjoyed the only food beyond pancakes eaten on the entire trip- one hot dog, no bun, extra ketchup.

.sheer terror at every disney character wandering the park, save for peter pan, spotted from daddy's shoulders thanksgiving night as we walked toward main street for the parade, stopping the young man (no doubt heading out, to conclude his work day) for just one picture with the little girl who cried and avoided every.other.disney.character in the park except for the handsome young man in green tights?

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we still have that mylar balloon, deflated and carefully tucked into the dusty scrapbook. that overflowing scrapbook that, even now, i can close my eyes and feel in my hands. i can feel the colorful park map poking out of the top right, and the thick cover, with the iconic castle and disney's name on the front.  i can see my mother's handwritten journal entries, written on hotel's notepaper, chronicling all the stops along the way, and our ultimate journey throughout the theme park and nearby sea world.

i can close my eyes and bring together the composites of my memory and the stories i've seen in pictures and been told through the years and i see a little girl with golden blond-brown hair, in her favorite yellow shirt with poofy sleeves and ruffles, hands atop soft, darker brown hair, taller than anyone and anything, taller than the world, suddenly spotting one green hat with one red feather, small hands unconsciously grasping, pulling that dark hair, squealing and hyperventilating, asking please, just please, it's peter pan, can't i meet him, please, can't i just talk to him?


so let's marvel- look at how handsome that peter pan was, way back in 1989!

what old photos do you have that bring out your stories?