But It Bears Repeating

It has been well over a month since I have posted, and before I proceed, I feel that there is something that I have written that bears repeating. That is, that while I believe that every father is proud of his children, there is no father who can be any prouder than I am of mine. Continuing from my last post, let me present a few moments of a father and his daughter.

Today

I have been richly blessed in this life!

I have a wife who loves me and doesn't seem to mind the fact that there is still a kid running around the house - even though our kid's left home years ago. I have great mom; my enabler. I have a wonderful sister who I am immensely proud of. And with her come's a brother-in-law and great little nephew who can wear out a Star Wars Legos set.

Then comes the children. Mrs. Doc has Jeff, my step-son, and his wife Camille. They are an amazing couple balancing careers and raising two beautiful children; Luke (who is also good with Legos) and Emmery. Then there is my son, Gregory and his wife Jennifer. Wow! It isn't easy raising a family with one parent traveling so often, but they are writing the book on how to do it - and do it right. They have blessed me with Devon, Shelby and Jackson (Jack-Jack). We have all just recently returned from Walt Disney World. Devon and I will be back in four days. But these guys are something else. They live just across the street from Mrs. Doc and I. I have to tell you; there is no greater feeling in the world than to come home from work and have your grandchildren rush out their front door hollowing, "Hi Papa!" and run over to give me a hug and tell me about their day. I highly recommend this type of living arrangement for anyone who plans on becoming a grandparent sometime during the course of their life.

I could go on and on about my grandkids. What grandparent can’t?

I could go on and on about both of my kids. We three grew up together; well, they grew up. I am still trying not too. But that is another story for another day.

Back to today.

Today, in fact, at this exact moment, I am especially blessed to be the Father of the Bride! At this moment I am walking my daughter down the aisle and will present her to her love, to be joined in marriage. Ali, an incredible young lady!

I know that every parent is so very proud of their children. Parents should be proud. I am proud of my children and it is a privilege to be their father. But today, in this moment, there is not another father walking the face of this earth who is anymore proud of their daughter than I am of mine right now! She is my little girl - she is my princess.

Ali, me and my lovely bride at the "Couples" Wedding Party.

...on the road (actually in the air) with one of my favorite traveling companions.

...at Cirque du Soleil "Love" (we saw Paul McCartney in concert the night before)

...and presenting my son-in-law, Ryan.

P.s. He doesn't mind taking my calls whenever I call him from Walt Disney World and need a quick wine pairing. He is quite good. He and I have become good friends and challenge each other to take better photographs. Ryan, welcome to the family!

I am proud you two! You, along with all the family, keep the blessing flowing.

How?

My wife, Mrs. Doc, enjoys a website called eHow.com. On it, people write “how to” on a variety of subjects. On there you can find information on from how to cut a gem stone, to how to boil water. Seriously, there is an article on how to boil water. Mrs. Doc has written a few of these “how to” articles. The one about how to cut a gem stone was hers.

She also has the nice habit of forwarding eHow articles to me from time to time. This is especially true if the article has anything to do with Walt Disney World. And I have come to learn there are a good number of articles centered on things related to Disney. A search of the site yielded 33K plus entries in which the word “Disney” appears. She sent one these to me this weekend that I particularly liked and wanted to comment on. It is entitled “How to Spread the Magic While Visiting Walt Disney World.”

It is simple article and contains three ways to “Spread the Magic.” One is easy enough – smile. Most of us are smiling the whole time we’re there anyway. With this, we need simply to direct our smile towards someone else. Brighten their day just that much more!

The second recommendation I found interesting. Wave to other people in the parks and count the number of times someone else waves back. The writer says that her family makes a game out of it. I am a bit introverted so this one would be a little difficult for me. Yes, waving is easy if I am waving at someone I know, but I don’t often do this with strangers. I’ve have waved at someone then quickly pulled my hand down when I discovered the person I was waving at was not the person I thought they were. Still, it may be interesting to try this suggestion some time.

Third, and another suggestion that is easily accomplished, is to strike up a conversation while in queue. I say it’s easy, and while it doesn’t happen that often, I have been known start a conversation with someone else in queue. The reality is, that more often than not, I am in line with friends or family so my conversation is usually directed to them. But again, it has happened. Another suggestion mentioned, what I’ll call 3a, is to recognize someone’s celebration button and comment. It is not hard too hard to tell someone “Happy Birthday”, “Happy Anniversary” or “Congratulations” to a Just Married couple. These are all special moments and we are helping to make it that much more special.

If there is one thing The Disney Obsession is about, it is about the emotion that comes from a love of all things Disney. I think that is the way Walt would want it? Don’t you think he intended for his parks to spark emotions in us all? I think he did.

The Magic Kingdom is known as The Magical Place on Earth. But for all the magic there, and throughout all of Walt Disney World, there is always room for a little more. There is room for the magic that we can make by sharing our happiness, our joy, our excitement with others around us. We have the privilege, and the duty, to share our magic with those we know and with total strangers; fellow travelers, we meet along the way.

I suppose you might say it’s a way to Pay It Forward, Disney style.

More to follow…

What Is Your Favorite Park?

Just over a year ago my friend George Taylor of Imaginerding invited me to take part in a series of interviews he was conducting called "Meet Our Neighbors." In the interview he would pose a series of questions and invite other bloggers to answer them for inclusion on his site. I enjoyed this opportunity as it afforded me the chance to give some real thought to specific aspects of my Disney Obsession.

I have gone back and re-read his questions and my answers and thought it would be good if I were to take some of the questions and go into a little more detail. You might call if "fuel" for a few posts here. So to begin with, and for this installment of Disney As Art, I thought I would revisit the question, "What is your favorite park?" I answered the question:

"As special as the Magic Kingdom is, and most every trip begins with a walk down Main Street U.S.A., my favorite park is Epcot. That is where I renewed my love for Disney as an adult. The icon is like no other. The moment it became "the" park was when I first heard the sub-woofers kick in during Saint-Saëns "Organ" Symphony in Impressions de France. From that moment on..."

This has not changed in the year since I wrote that, or in the years since "I first heard the heard the..."

For most of my life I have held a fascination with France and specifically with Paris. There was time when I could say I had spent more time in Paris than I had in Walt Disney World. It was the first stop on a trip my parents gave me as a graduation gift. It was the city where my wife and I spent our honeymoon. It was a quick trip on the EuroStar while we lived in England and it was the city I always tried to route my travel through whenever I flew back and forth to Europe to teach.

When I am in Epcot, specifically in France, I allow my mind to wander into the realm of fantasy. When that happens I think back to days when I felt that the bohemian lifestyle would have suited my artistic temperment. I feel this when I look up at the window above the wine shop on Le Petit Rue and see a lone flickering light. I am drawn to the tragic story of Rodolfo and Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme. And if I listen close enough with my imagination I can just hear Rodolfo's anguished cry as he cradles the deceased Mimi in his arms. 

I can set on a bench and easily place myself in Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence. There I become Charles Strickland; a character based on Paul Gauguin. I am a painter exploring the reach of my creativity along side Van Gogh, and then finally journeying to the South Pacific to find a vision of "art" and "beauty." Or I can set with Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Pound and others of "The Lost Generation" at the side walk cafe that once stood on the promenade. There we would pour over the morning papers, have a cup of espresso, a pastry, and decide what the day will hold.

Fanciful? Probably. But this is what is conjured up in my mind anytime I cross the bridge from the United Kingdom or step across the change in pavement from Morocco. Is this the real Paris in the real France? No, not by a large margin. I doesn't contain my favorite table at my favorite cafe on the Left Bank. 

But, it is still magical. When I visit this little corner of the World Showcase I am transported, for however long, to a semblance of a place that holds many fond memories for me. I can travel, if but for a little while, to a place where my imagination can run free. And isn't that what Disney is about? A place where our imagination can be set free. 

I hope this piece of Disney as Art can help you reach into your imagination and cause you to smile.

More to follow...

What's It All About?

It has been two weeks since I returned from that magical trip to Walt Disney World with my grandchildren. Some of you have said you were looking forward to hearing more about the holiday. To those people, I apologize.

My apology is two-fold. On one hand, I have been incredibly busy since getting back. On the other hand, and actually the more important of the excuses, is that, quite frankly, it has been hard to put the experience into words. Yes, I could give you a nice exposition on how the parks were not all that crowded, therefore the wait times were not bad. I can tell you how this enabled us to accomplish much more than we imagined we’d be able to. But this could never fully express what took place during the Labor Day weekend.

I continue to look back and as I do, I come to understand that this trip was, for me at least, not about the experiences. It was about the emotions! It was about how I reacted and how I felt as I watched my babies experience the magic for the first time.

It was about that rush of excitement I felt as I watched and listened to Devon and Shelby help Mickey count down to the park opening. It was about taking baby steps so that 2-year old Jackson could keep up with us as we walked into Town Square. It was about finally giving free reign to my tears when I heard my granddaughter’s very audible gasp when she turned onto Main Street U.S.A. and said, “Oh look Papa, the Castle. It’s beautiful!” It was about us taking our first flight with Peter Pan over the streets of London and then to hear Devon say, “We’re in Neverland!” It was about waltzing with my granddaughter in the lobby of Mickey’s PhilharMagic and reaching out with Devon to grab the apple pie. It was about holding Shelby tight as we took the plunge on Splash Mountain and “The Grimsley Men” trying to pull the sword from the stone and laughing at our combined inability to do so. It was about smiling at my bride riding beside our princess on Cinderella’s Golden Carrousel and riding Dumbo for my first time ever with my grown son and both of us being very happy.

It was about watching their first meeting with Mickey and Minnie, and then watching Jackson warm up to the characters as the weekend progressed; so much so that he would fight his brother and sister so that he could stand right next to each of the Fab Five in the Epcot Character Spot. It was about watching him break away from his Daddy and run up to each character to give them a hug.

It was about so many things. So many more things!

It was about being able to cry openly in broad daylight, in public, simply because I was too happy to hold my tears inside. It was about “really” becoming a child again for the first time in a long time.

It was about – well, it was about magic!

When You Wish Upon A Star...

your dreams come true!

Five Generations of Flight

This past Wednesday my friend Ryan at the Main Street Gazette hosted his first blog roundtable. On it, he asked the question, “What is your favorite attraction in the Magic Kingdom and why?” I want to share on The Disney Obsession, my answer. Then I would like to follow with an additional comment.

“My favorite ride in the Magic Kingdom is Peter Pan's Flight. There has never been any question on this! “True, there are many great rides in the Magic Kingdom; great for the thrills they bring or for the story they tell. Peter Pan's Flight is great for the memory it stirs within me. I made my first visit to Walt Disney World in the early Spring of 1972. It was only one day on what was a whirlwind tour through Florida. I don't remember everything about the Magic Kingdom that day, but I do remember that Flight. When our ship turned the corner and we flew out over the city of London, it was magic! It was magic that I still do not fully appreciate and cannot fully explain. In that moment I was flying! In that moment I was transported to another place and another time. I didn't need to know how things worked; I didn't care. All I cared about was being in that place at that time and wishing it could have lasted forever. It was pure fantasy. It was wonder!"I am so much older now and I know a little bit more about how things work. Yet, when I walk through the castle into Fantasyland and turn left at Mickey's PhilharMagic, I try very hard to forget. All I wish to do is climb aboard a flying ship and sail out over the city of London, think back to that first flight in '72 and just for a moment remember that there is still some small bit of innocence, a little dram of wonder, and a touch of magic still left in this world. I become, not an old man, but a boy who never really wanted to grow up."

Not much has changed. Although our home is an “empty nest”, Mrs. Doc will quickly point out that having me around is akin to having a little boy in the house. As I have said on other occasions, a person may have to grow old, but they never have to grow up. These are my words to live by and an outlook that I have tried to pass along to my children and now to my grandchildren.

Today, I will be sharing this attraction with the fifth generation of our family.

When I first flew in that Spring of 1972 it was with my mom and dad. In the late 1980’s I introduced my son and daughter to the delight of flight. Also on that late '80's trip was my grandmother. At this hour, I am riding it with my grandsons and granddaughter. There were not many things I asked for with this trip, but this was one of them; the honor of riding with them on their first flight over London. With any luck, they will not ask how it works.

But if they do, it’s magic! Isn't it? After all, we’re all kids and to us, most everything is touched with a bit of magic. Faith, trust and pixie dust!

More to follow…