How I Came to Drive the Disney Monorail

"Alone"
or
"How I Came to Drive the Walt Disney World Monorail"

This story takes place between my first semester of high school and my second semester. The first semester of high school had passed as swiftly as the Hundred Years War and contained an adequate amount of humiliation. I will not detail those months because either you already understand the trials of high school and my tale mirrors your own or you will never understand and our time here will have been wasted. The one detail I think is worth mentioning is that that first semester not only introduced me to high school but it introduced me to braces.

The second semester was the one I had dreaded from almost the first day of high school. The second semester contained the one class that everyone had to take in their second semester in place of a standard English class. This class is the class that still haunts me at night. This is the class that ensured I would forever be terrified of speaking in front of people, unable to make even the simplest toast at my brother’s wedding. This class, of course, was Speech, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. I’ll give one detail about the Speech class and I’ll move on, or rather back, to the story. This one detail, this one event, is the only redeeming memory I have of Speech class.

I had taken my glasses off. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a headache. Maybe I wanted a little escape. Regardless, I wasn’t wearing my glasses when the woman sitting in front of me turned around and handed me a paper to pass back. I did so, and she turned forward. Then she turned back to me, having almost done a double take. I looked at her and waited for her to say something. Finally she said, "You have beautiful eyes." Then she turned around and that was it. It was not the first time someone told me I had beautiful eyes but it was the first time in probably ten years and it was the first time I had heard it from a peer. Fortunately, it was not the last time.

But this story occurs in the days before the Speech class so let’s go back there: I had a paper route…

Actually, let’s go back a little further: My brother and I shared a paper route. I was about eight-years-old, which would make him about nine-years-old. Our parents thought it was time for us to gain a little responsibility. And "a little responsibility" turned out to mean getting up before dawn twice a week, folding and banding 50 newspapers, and each walking our half of a paper route. Now, don’t get me wrong. Our parents didn’t kick us out there to fend for ourselves. They walked the route with us a few times and made sure we knew where we were going and which house to drop papers at.

As the years passed, we stopped delivering by wagon and started delivering by bike. We stopped delivering in the mornings and started delivering the night before. We stopped sharing a paper route and we each started our own eight by eight block route.

During this time, we earned enough money to buy an Atari console (yes, the original Atari, later to be renamed the Atari 2600), many Atari games, a massive order of really cool junk by mail order, and far more pizza and candy than two young boys should have treated themselves to. We also each earned two accommodations for delivering newspapers on two of the coldest days in Chicago history (with the help of our parents’ heated vans, of course).

When my brother started high school, he gave up his paper route (which quickly became our sister’s paper route). He said that "high schoolers didn’t deliver newspapers." He was right, of course, but when I started high school, I couldn’t see giving up my only source of income until I was old enough that society would let me have any other job. (By society, I mean society-at-large and the laws that say you can’t work a real job until your sixteenth birthday. I’m not referring to the society of the south suburban town that we lived in. That society wouldn't have a problem with me tending bar in one of the local bars, as a few of my 14-year-old peers were doing.) I held on to the paper route a little longer. Fortunately.

I walked home from high school one day in mid-October. Over the expressway bridge, down the ravine, through the wandering streets. It was a day like any other. Until I got home.

At home, my mother says that The Star called. I’m thinking "Just great. Someone missed a paper. Or someone didn’t get their paper fast enough. Or I didn’t collect enough money from enough people this month. Or…" Then I realize Mom’s already telling me why the newspaper called and she’s all smiles.

Apparently, The Star has a contest every year. Apparently, your name goes into a drawing every time you sell a subscription. Apparently, I’d won.

I’m very excited about this. I don’t even know what I’ve won but I’m very excited. I’m also confused. Selling subscriptions is something I’ve never done. I deliver the newspaper to the houses they tell me to. I collect the money once a month. I don’t go door-to-door begging people to buy a paper they don’t want.

Then I learned that your name also goes into the drawing every time The Star’s telemarketing force calls someone on your route who says, "I already get the paper and the dude who delivers it really rocks my socks!"...or words to that effect.

So, I’ve won. But what have I won?

Imagine if you will, a child whose dream is to see the ocean, winning a trip to the Atlantic coast. Or imagine an impoverished Mormon woman winning a vacation to Salt Lake City. Or imagine a boy raised in a Disney fanatic family, a boy who loves every Disney full-length animated feature and even most of the live action crap that came out during the 70s and early 80s, like Condorman; a boy who has been to Disney World with his family more than once but, never-the-less, would really like to go again, winning a trip to Disney World.

Ok, stop imagining now. You guessed it. I won a trip to Disney World.

Just after New Years, I boarded an airplane with seven other delivery boys, two delivery girls, and Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, the chaperones for the trip. Mr. and Mrs. Lucas both worked for the newspaper and had long since accepted that an annual all-expenses paid trip to Disney World was just part of the job.

As we board the airplane, I listen to the other kids. It became obvious to me that I’m the only one who’s been on an airplane before. Although this was my first domestic commercial flight, I had previously flown on my cousin’s private plane and I had taken a round-trip flight to Heathrow. I did not say this, however, because I had a feeling it would actually come out sounding like, "Hi. I’m a complete twit. At your earliest convenience, could you rally together and stuff me into the nearest mailbox?"

I noticed that the kid who was the most afraid to fly, who was literally shaking in his seat, was the largest of the boys. And although I was the oldest kid there, he couldn’t have been too far behind me in age. The other two kids who seemed terrified were the smallest, youngest boys. The other boys and the two girls seemed to take airplane flight as a new experience, but not something to fear. This was the first time I realized that physical size and age often have nothing to do with bravery. This was not the first time that I discovered women would often be at least as brave as men.

While we perform our in-flight checklist, let me mention one thing: About now, you might be getting suspicious that I’m making this up. You may not believe that "The Lucas’s" from "The Star" took a ragtag bunch of kids to another World, far, far away, at the same time that "Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi" was playing in theaters. This, however, is all true. In fact, the only reason can I remember The Lucas’ name, when I remember none of the other kids’, is because we were in the middle of Star Wars mania at the time.

Once we landed in Florida, and were settled into our hotel rooms, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the hotel’s amenities. Dinner buffet, Donkey Kong Jr., Swimming pool. It was that first night I learned I was old enough to fully enjoy the free in-room pornos.

The next day began the itinerary that was given to us and our parents at the orientation meeting a month previous:

Day 1: We take the shuttle from the hotel to the Magic Kingdom and have breakfast together in the Crystal Palace. Then we are free to wander the park until noon when we meet under Cinderella’s Castle. Then the Lucas’ hand out five dollar bills to everyone for lunch and we are free to wander the park again until dinner. We have dinner together, and then we take the shuttle back to the hotel.

Day 2: Same, but in Epcot.

Day 3: Same as Day 1.

Day 4: Same as Day 2. (My memories are a little fuzzy here but I think it was four days.)

You may think that the best thing about this trip to me was being in Disney World. At the time, I may have said the same thing. However, that would not have been true. The best thing about the trip was being alone.

As an adult, I’ve learned that, as much as I like people, and as much as I love the people I spend most of my time with, my sanity depends on spending a little time each day alone. I’ve known this for a long time. Maybe it was in Florida I learned it. Maybe it was that first day after breakfast.

Four of us boys immediately decided that we would hit the park together and we raced out of the Crystal Palace to start the day. Not half an hour went by before we realized we wanted vastly different things out of Disney World. As we began mapping out who got to do what first, my heart sank. I recognized the situation and I knew that in a few minutes I would let the others drag me wherever they wanted to go. I would never say a word. I would just be resentful. (You may find more information about "middle child syndrome" in the appendix. Then again, you may not.) I made a decision.

I walked away. I told the guys I’d see them at lunch, and I walked away. I was determined to spend the morning alone. No parents. No teachers. No brother with the perfect grades. No sister with the huge circle of friends. No anybody. Just me. Alone.

It was wonderful. I rode the Jungle Cruise (enjoying even the worst puns), the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, the Pirates of the Caribbean. Soon it was time for lunch and I headed over to Cinderella’s Castle. When I got there, the three guys asked me if I wanted to go with them for lunch. I said "nope!" thanked Mrs. Lucas for my fiver and headed off to Tomorrowland to work up my courage to ride Space Mountain.

The next four days were pretty much the same. I rode the sky cars (which no longer exist) over the Magic Kingdom, I had cream tea in Epcot’s United Kingdom, and, well…I did pretty much everything at least once. This was January in a time before Disney World was crowded year round. I could get on just about any ride in less than 10 minutes.

But the high point of those days was this: Because of my age and my familiarity of the parks, the Lucas’ did for me what they did for no other kid. They let me keep my park pass with me so that I could hop back and forth between the Magic Kingdom and Epcot anytime I wanted. When I got tired of one park I could just take the monorail to the other. On one of these monorail trips, I tried something that my family had on a previous trip to Disney World: I requested a ride in the front of the monorail. The conductor granted my request and ushered me, along with two women who made the same request, to the "engine" of the monorail. As the monorail left the station, the two women, who were about five years older than I, began flirting with the driver.

One thing leads to another, and soon he’s letting one of them drive the monorail while the other one takes a picture. Then the women swap and they take the other picture. Soon the driver takes over again and the women sit back down and resume their duties as passengers.

I don’t have many regrets in my life. And, like most people I’ve met, my regrets are not of things I did, but of things I didn’t do. Of opportunities lost. Lost, often, because of the briefest of hesitations.

I knew that in less than two minutes, the monorail would reach the Epcot station. I didn’t want this, of all things, on my list of opportunities lost. I looked up at the driver and asked him if I could try driving the monorail. Without the slightest hesitation, he said, "Sure! Come on up!"

I handed my camera to one of the women as he told the basics. "Never lift up on this button or the monorail will come to a stop. Let me ease it from my thumb to yours. Good. Now every time you see a white line on the rail, like that one coming up, pull back slightly on this lever. Good." Then he stepped away, so the woman could take my picture as the lone driver. Or perhaps he didn’t want photographic evidence of his gross negligence. Either way, he let me drive the monorail for over a mile.

Of all the things I learned that week – that I can ride Space Mountain four times in a row without losing my lunch, that Mr. Lucas’ favorite ride is Peter Pan, that I can watch two hours of naked coeds without blinking, that I can drive the monorail – the most important thing I learned was that you can be alone without being lonely. You can be alone, and it’s OK. You can be alone and have one hell of a lot of fun.