"The journalist" (aka MOM) sent me the following story in an email the other day.
"Shrinking the kids"
Linda Petrak of Martinez remembers one anxious trip to Disneyland in the late '60s. They headed to Monsanto's Adventure Thru Inner Space, a ride that took visitors through a microscope aboard "atommobiles," where they became
molecules, even atoms.
"Waiting in line ... the riders could be viewed in their buggies as they traveled through a clear tube at which point they were just a few inches in height. Realizing that this was just the beginning of how tiny I would eventually become, I began to cry. I was puzzled how my parents could subject me to such a risk. Suppose the machine broke down and I would never return to my current size?"
This post could have easily been titled "Poof! There goes the Magic". I feel her pain.
I was a child with a terrific imagination (I still am). I believed that I might be able to fly, if the wind was sting enough. I LOVED Disneyland. I believed in the magic that was Disneyland. For me, going on Monsanto Adventure Thru Inner Space was amazing - I was actually going to shrink!
WOW!! COOL!!! MOM! LOOK!! WE'RE SO TINY!!!
I still remember the thrill of that ride - I completely trusted that we'd come out just fine - back to normal size. And we did (except maybe not Mom...), hm.
The last time I had given any thought to being shrunk down to the size of an atom was most likely being on that ride. I was eight - or seven. Imagination, innocence, naivete still intact. And thriving. Soon after, they removed the attraction (note to author/editor of above piece: Disneyland does not have "rides" they are "Attractions"). I had no reason to question the reality of my shrinking. After all, it wasn't confronted annually, like the viability of Santa Claus.
Fast forward sixteen years. It was 1998, and I was in the art gallery, above Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland with my then-boyfriend. As we walked around the gallery, looking at the various designwork from the 1960's of Tomorrowland, I froze.
There, in front of me stood a pedestal, on top of which was a small purple buggy (the aforementioned "atommobile"), with small people sitting in it. In its entirety, it was no more than 18" tall.
I'm not at all sure if it hit me suddenly, like a light bulb going on, or if it was one of those rushing-montage-to-a-point-and-freezing sorts of realizations - but it hit me, right there in the gallery.
I never shrank.
At 24, some hidden magic that I had unknowingly carried with me for so long evaporated in that split second.
**POOF!!**
There went the Magic. Alas.
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1 comment:
Aw, I remember that story. I love that it wasn't till you were 24 that the realization came.
I had a similar experience on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at the age of 9. I loved that you got to steer it yourself, and begged my brother and sister to let me drive. Then the end part of the ride scared me so much (yes, at age 9), that I covered my eyes and shouted at my brother that he would have to drive. Ahem. I'm not sure how old I was when I realized that the "attraction" drives its freaking self.
Then there was the moment one Christmas eve, when, canny 8-year-old that I was, I realized that reindeer can't fly and therefore, that Santa is not real. So logical of me.
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