Prehistory
My mother was an inveterate pack rat, a genetic trait which was passed down to me, I'm afraid. When she died she left my father to deal with box after box of the detritus of two childhoods — report cards, crayon drawings, theme papers, Cub Scout crafts, and the like. A lot of it was discreetly discarded, but a fair amount of it remains.
She also kept souvenirs of all sorts from all our family vacations. A while back my father and I came across a collection of program books and ticket stubs covering decades of family vacations, Among these questionable treasures was the 1971 Walt Disney World Preview Guide. We got a copy of this 24-page booklet in the fall of '71, when our family made an ill-timed and Wally World-like excursion to Florida's Disneyland, only to discover that it was not yet open to the public. The sympathetic people at the construction trailer, though, kindly gave us the booklet — a savings of 65¢! — to show us what we weren't going to do.
The other night I finally got around to scanning the book. I threw the pages into an out-of-the-box gallery, so it isn't exactly optimized for the best user experience. Nonetheless, if you are interested, here is the entire booklet for your nostalgic reading pleasure. Take a moment a return to those mist-shrouded days when Miami and Fort Lauderdale were Florida's best-known vacation spots, and read about Walt's original plans for Disney World and EPCOT.
5 Comments:
Wow. Nice job, mkh!
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Great googly moogly. I REMEMBER that booklet. My uncle was a carpenter back in the day, one of the army contracted to work on the Magic Kingdom in the late 60's/early 70's. It was via his offices that my mother and I took a "pre-opening" tour. I was maybe 7 years old, and it failed to impress me because I remember nothing much about it except holding my mom's hand, looking at various almost-completed buildings, and wondering what the fuss was all about.
Living as close as I do, I have of course been there many time. I remember the infamous ticket books and when Pirates of the Caribbean was not quite so PC, and I've sat in "It's a Small World" when the ride broke down and the passengers, after enduring a brain melting 45 minutes of THAT DAMN SONG began opening discussing taking out the little animatronic puppets and making a break for freedom.
The pictures are wonderful. In many ways, I wish Florida still looked like that.
Talk about Serendipity. Clark, 8, has decided he wants to be Walt for his next school presentation. And the time period he picked is those magic years between the opening of Disneyland and Disney World. Thanks, Kev.
It's so cool that your mom kept all this stuff. I wish I had 1/3 of my childhood memorabilia now.
My family went in October 1972 (I think it was). Though we hadn't planned it that way, it turned out to be the official grand opening weekend! What a god-awful mess that was!
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