Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us. — Oscar Wilde
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
— Emily Dickinson
My sister and my niece stopped over Christmas Eve for our annual ritual of exchanging Christmas gifts. This inevitably resulted in a rehashing of the past — past Christmases and past other events. Somehow the topic came up about Disney World. My sister brought-up our trip to Disney World when we were little. My niece, who’d went with her mother and father when she was little said, "I wanna go back."
"Me too," my sister said. "That’d make a nice trip for Christmas. They really do-up Christmas down there. They have a big parade and everything. Shame it has to cost so much."
"I saw an ad online for discount sea world tickets. I imagine they’re probably offering tickets to Disney World too."
"If the economy keeps going the way it’s been going, they’ll probably be giving away tickets by next year," my sister said.
"Oh yeah!" my niece said. "Let’s go next year. Can we?"
"I don’t think so. But, who knows, maybe we’ll hit the lottery or something. We’ll see."
"You know what?" I said.
"What?"
"I can’t really remember much about that trip. I know we went to Disney World. I remember the Dumbo ride and the 20000 League Under the Sea Sub. Did we go to Sea World?"
"How do I know," my sister said. "I was only three."
It’s funny that that trip to Orlando was one of the best vacations we ever had as a family and I cannot for the life of me remember much more about it than the fact that I had a good time. How will I ever finish my memoir about my childhood without recalling that vacation?
Okay, I do remember some things about it. I remember that just about everywhere we went, someone was passing out orange juice — usually in little plastic containers in the shape of an orange. I remember riding in a glass-bottom boat somewhere. I remember "It’s a Small World After All," and I remember shaking hands with Minnie and Mickey Mouse. I remember Gator Land. My mother freaking out, worrying that one of us my get loose and fall into the water and get eaten by a gator. My Dad getting aggravated (because he was always aggravated about something when we went on vacation). Me wanting a baby gator as a pet. But I cannot for the life of me remember going to Sea World. Was Sea World even there in 1972? I know I’ve been to aquatic shows before, but I don’t think any of those happened at Sea World. One I do remember happened at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure, this was the trip where we stopped at Cape Canaveral, although I think so. I seem to recall that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was five.
Somewhere in those musty old boxes I call a memory, there’s a box marketed Orlando, 1972.
