This was posted by KIRO 7 reporter Natasha Chen on her Facebook page on July 17, 2015, the 60th anniversary of Disneyland's opening:
It was all started by a mouse.
Once upon a time, exactly 60 years ago today, Disneyland opened its doors.
There are many of you who may have enjoyed that park through the years, maybe grew out of it, maybe compared it to the younger resort in Orlando, maybe thought it was too corporate or too fill-in-the-blank...
But I have been to Disneyland about 30 times, and I'll continue to go for the rest of my life.
It's the one place where I can suspend disbelief without fail, where nothing from the real world seeps in through the gates, and where attention to detail is mind-boggling. It's where heroes make mistakes, villains experience misunderstanding, princesses no longer need a prince to end the story, and yet the shoe always fits if you want it to.
It's the place where I learned how to tell a good story.
The stories of a never-aging boy flying through the stars, stories of pirates trying to convince a dog to give them the jail keys, stories of a rabbit who might have led us to a very steep, splashy drop...
And then there are the stories my parents tell, like the time my mom handed me our park tickets when I sat in the stroller...and I lost them by the time we got to the entrance (who gives a toddler the park tickets?!)
From my stroller trips to present day, I love walking down Main Street and thinking of how Disney and his family spent time there, in their apartment over the fire station - and how in a way, I'm coming home to the familiar too. Yet some new attraction is always catching my attention, because like Disney himself said, Disneyland will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world.
Sure, the man was deeply flawed. Yes, tickets are expensive (watch this girl score all the known discounts!) And of course, I can mimic the ridiculous princess wave that they do from the float.
But I focus on what he created: the fact that a mouse launched generations of artists and thinkers, including my father, who as a child, watched Disney cartoons and thought maybe he could draw his own film strip to be projected on a wall for the neighborhood kids to see.
I'll be returning to the park this year to celebrate ‪#‎Disneyland60‬. I promise I won't lose the tickets this time.
KIRO
