The Safest Place on Earth

I am turning fifty this year. It seems like such a long time to still be thinking about my childhood recently as much as I do. Yet, here I am on a chilly Southern California Sunday, thinking about being five years old on the days when it rained, and my mom and stepdad were fighting. A slight chill in the air on days like this does that to me. Today, I was driving to pick up my daughters from water polo, and as I park to wait for them, brief images and feelings flash into the forefront of my mind. Just a slap across the cranium and I am overwhelmed by sadness and deep hurt. I was remembering when my mother and stepfather would be fighting in the living room, and chaos broke loose. Very traumatic for a child at my age. Very confusing. It still is confusing, and it can be hard to hold these memories in contrast to the life I now have.

Tornadoes in So Cal

I can't remember every instance of those types of fights, but they were frequent. They appeared like all the spaces you see between these words, they are there, but nobody ever talks about them or notices them until they are pointed out. As a child, it is hard to understand why it was happening. I don't think any child at that age ever really knows "why" their parents fight, but I am aware that I wanted it to stop. Sometimes it would stop, and other times it just got worse. There were times when things would get broken, or something or someone would go flying across the room. Like a wrestling match, but they were throwing ashtrays instead of metal chairs. Replace the crowd cheering with a couple shouting, three wailing, crying children, and an occasional shatter of some glass. There, now you have all the audio and visual cues to build an evening of my childhood. Gotta love the 70s!

Most of the time, we managed to get by without too much damage and other times not, but I would like to tell you how fun it was. That's right! It was fun sometimes! Some nights, my mom would load us kids up in the car and take us places to getaway. So many spontaneous adventures! How excited I was! It was scary at first, don't get me wrong. The getaway of loading up the car could be very frightening, but once we were on our way, it felt freeing.

Get gone

I suspect most of the times we went to the beach were to avoid Saturday mornings at home and stay away from my step-monster (my pet name for my stepfather). One night, I remember staying late at the Paramount Drive-in and watching a double feature, the Excorcist, and The Blob. We were way too young to be watching those things, but I don't think anyone really cared back then. Did they? We had some excellent memories come out of those late-night trips and other adventures.

Sometimes we would go to my uncle's house. He lived down the street from Disneyland in Anaheim. We would make our way to "The Happiest Place on Earth" with no money to get in, but somehow we always managed to get in. At the time, they had a separate entry ticket and a ticket booklet that you purchased. This ticket booklet contained a lot of "A-Tickets" and these tickets were not very desirable. You could go on Alice, PeterPan, and Storybook Land with those tickets, but that's about it. They had "Bs and C's, and Ds" BUT! The "E-Ticket" is what you wanted! Hard to get a hold of for free! But we would wait at the main exits and beg people for tickets. We got a lot of "A-Tickets" and a few "E-Tickets." We would mostly run around Disneyland and spend time at The Country Bear Jamboree or watching Lincoln give his speech. Somedays, we would spend all day running around Disneyland, getting in trouble and getting kicked out with threats to call our parents. Good luck with that!

Entry ticket

Usually, we pulled these torn up out of bins and pretended to tear our own ;) So tricky!

1180-x-600-101215_disneyland-ticketbooks-60th-anniversary-2-780x440.jpg — E-Tickets

“Please, sir! Spare an E-Ticket for a poor boy?”

One day, I suppose we just never went back home. I don't recall, but I think we stayed at my uncle's house for a very long time that summer. Maybe the arguments and fights went on too long or just one too many times, or my mom just couldn't take the abuse or seeing us kids hurt anymore. Perhaps it was time for them to move on. What I do know is that I will never forget how it felt to be away from all the madness and just "be" at Disneyland.

Magic shop and the penny arcade

I never felt afraid to be at Disneyland. Not once. Nobody hit a member of my family at Disneyland. I never saw anyone fall over drunk at Disneyland (not yet). Nobody broke all the furniture or the floating vinyl records in the Haunted Mansion. Nobody ever burned me or choked me at Disneyland. When I went to Disneyland, it meant that I would be safe and that everyone I loved would be safe too. I could be a child when I was there and not have to worry. To me, Disneyland wasn't "The Happiest Place on Earth." It was "The Safest Place on Earth." I didn't know a lot about happiness when I was a kid, but I sure did understand what it felt like to be safe.

My wife and I have maintained a season pass for Disneyland for nearly twenty years. Though in 2020/21, Disneyland has been closed due to the pandemic. I have always looked forward (and hopefully will again sometime soon) to going with our family. I don't think my wife and kids understand how much anxiety I have had around my upbringing. Or how much I flashback to those insecure and unstable moments of my childhood. But as soon as we begin to walk down Main Street, USA, those memories and worries start to fade, and I look forward to the rest of the day with my family. Our family has their moments, too, and it can get pretty heated, and yes, we can even argue at Disneyland but have always found our way home... safe.