When I was growing up in the east side of Long Beach in Southern California (yes, Snoop Dogg and I are homies) I guess we did not have a lot of ‘extra’ cash which makes sense as I was living with my single mom in what I recall was a lower class apartment. Yet she always made sure I had fun stuff to do. My father was the same. I saw him every other weekend and he would make sure we would do fun activities to do together whether it was building stuff with LEGO blocks or setting up and racing the cars on the Hot Wheels track
Sometimes we would go to Knott’s Berry Farm and walk around the outside by the shops or across the street to Independence Hall and Knott’s Lagoon. A popular activity for local residents was feeding the ducks and their ducklings who lived there and the now paved over lake year-round. They had these sort of gum-ball machines mounted on poles near the water’s edge where you could purchase handfuls of corn kernels but we would always bring stale bread.
Sometimes at night we would go to Anaheim and find a free parking lot for a business or maybe a hotel near Disneyland and we would watch the fireworks. I remember those warm summer nights waiting in anticipation for the fireworks to begin. Disneyland would light up the sky with what would be the most amazing of displays. So many colors and explosions. Wow. Good times.
I don’t get back to Disneyland as often as I used to and times have changed and I have grown so I am not sure they are as impressive in my eyes as they where 40 years ago. Still whenever I see fireworks on New Years or Fourth of July it will often taken me back to a time when things were simpler. A time when, thanks to a dream of Walt Disney, the sky was filled with magic for one little boy.
That makes me smile.
(Photo courtesy of www.disneytouristblog.com)