Friday feeling

Every horse and stall survived the night.  The new one is a drinker.  I am going to give him two pails instead of one.

Tex Avery and Ward Kimball are my heros!  Ward, mainly because I knew and loved he and Walt Disney as a child.  I thought for a moment you were comparing me to one of Tex's cartoons for a moment, enjoying the compliment, by the way.  However Ward's wonderful backyard railroad was really something to see.  He had a little engine with seats for passengers in it.  I only faintly remember these things though as it was in the late fifties to '61 and I was pretty small at the time.  Likely there was very little track, but it was a wonderland to me!  He had a little station with everything a station should have, an Engine Shed and even a shed for the passenger cars.  Ward was very kind and showed me around whilst Dad was working.  My sister used to talk about the tour he gave my older sibs just before Disneyland Opened around the Engine shed there and the shops.  They loved every moment!  At that time, my father was fighting with Roy Disney about the electrical setup on Main Street.  it only had ONE breaker box for the whole collection of buildings!  Dad used to say the place was only one short-circuit away from a bonfire back then.   Unfortunately, Walt was critically short of money and almost went broke before the park opened.  There are quite a few pictures of children running around the park.  Those were posed shots and my sister and brother are in most of them, usually at the back.  The children used were of the Disney employees.  Some from the Studio and others of construction workers (like my father).  When the park first opened, for about four or five years, there were a variety of horse-drawn coaches and carriages all over Disneyland.  You could ride down Mainstreet in a Surrey with the fringe on top (actually a Wagonette with standing top, but no one complained), and in Adventureland there were Stagecoaches.  All of these built by Disney employees.  After two run-aways on Main Street (caused by people stabbing the horses with knitting needles and a knife), and the increase of crowds, Walt ordered the carriages out of the park.  Last I saw, they were being stored in a warehouse in the 'Backstage' area of Disneyland.

But there I go nattering along again, sorry.  Some of the very few happy memories I have of childhood.  How I would love to have one of Walt's 'Surreys'.

catching up and loving Stude's Disney stories!

*going to look for DK's advice so I can decide whether to accept her apology* LOL