So there I was walking down Main Street, pink cotton candy
melting in my mouth, when suddenly my niece shrieked and pointed
to the map of Disneyland she had just unfolded, “There,”
she said, “I want to go there.”
Was she pointing to the ever-popular (if rough) Indiana Jones
ride? The overrated Space Mountain? The nausea-inducing Spinning
Teacups? No. No. And no. “Those lines are too long,”
she said. So off we went to Critter Country or, to be more
specific, one little corner of it.
We saw Tigger first, all orange and black and bouncy, then
Eeyore’s grey and gloomy frown, and, as we came around
the bend, you would have thought a spotlight was shining down
on him, he was so golden and bright and shining. There before
our eyes was the one and only Winnie the Pooh.
Of course, the next thing we saw was the line of folks lined
up to get a picture with the cuddly Superstar. “This
line is longer than the ones for the most popular rides in
the park,” I told my niece. “I don’t care,”
she said. “I want my picture taken with Pooh.”
So there we stood for an hour and a half, waiting and waiting
with grown-up, teenager, and toddler alike for an audience
with that willy nilly silly old bear. The line curved and
then turned back again, people shifted onto one leg and then
back onto the other, the Parade of Stars came and went along
with the laser show over the lake. Still, we stood and waited.
“We came all the way from Michigan to see Pooh,”
two teenage girls told me. “I don’t want to stand
in those other lines,” my niece explained, “but
I can’t go back to Georgia without my picture with Pooh.”
In that long line (with plenty of time to think), I asked
myself, “Why do people love this tubby little cubby
all stuffed with fluff so much that they will endure one of
the longest lines in the park for this photo op?” “Well,”
I told myself, “isn’t the answer obvious? In the
Hundred Acre Woods, a close-knit group of friends love and
care for one another. Nothing really bad ever happens. Oh,
Pooh may run out of honey or get stuck in Rabbit’s hole
every once in awhile; a rainstorm may come up and Christopher
Robin may have to go get his umbrella to rescue Piglet; Kanga
might briefly lose track of Roo. But these happenstances are
relatively minor, and all returns to happy harmony before
the end of the story. I mean really! ‘Oh bother’
is the worst profanity Pooh ever uses, and Piglet dispels
such sage advice as ‘Think happy!’”
There’s no question about it. A. A. Milne was a genius,
and I truly believe he was writing those sweet tales as much
for adults as for children (which explains why there were
so many adults standing in that line - even adults without
children). In a world gone mad with pornography, profanity,
vulgarity, violence, and corruption, who doesn’t need
a picture with Pooh to hang on their wall at home and remind
them of purity, innocence, honesty, simplicity, happiness,
sweetness - all characteristics quintessentially Pooh?
Finally, it was our turn. We got our pictures with Eeyore
and Tigger first (they’re kind of the opening act);
then we were on to Pooh. My niece ran up and hugged him as
I quickly snapped two pictures: one vertical, one horizontal.
And we were off. We could not have been with him for more
than twenty seconds.
Let me say that again. We waited for an hour and a half,
and we could not have been with Pooh for more than twenty
seconds. And do you know what? Every minute we waited…it
was worth it!
Long after my niece forgets about the caramel apples, the
Beast sighting, the Aurora wig we bought in the Princess store,
she’ll have this picture with Pooh in her photo album,
a picture with a critter that will always remind her of the
greatest qualities a being, any being, could ever possess.
Well, I may have hit upon the mystical allure of Pooh, or
I may have missed it entirely. But what I do know is this…I,
a full grown, professional adult walked out of the gates of
Disneyland that night, got on a tram, went to Daisy Duck in
the parking structure, and drove home - all the while wearing
golden fur Pooh ears on my head. Thank goodness the police
didn’t pull me over that night. Would they have believed
I hadn’t had one drink? With me all giddy and giggling
like that?
August 2002
|