Wright Brothers vs. Disney?

Darcy is becoming a great rock climber, as she demonstrated a few days.

You know how people (by which I mean middle school and high school boys, really) like to pose the question, "Who would win a fight, Batman or Spiderman?" The question I pose in this post is, "Who would win a fight, the Wright Brothers or Disney characters?"

Darcy hasn't had a lot of exposure to Disney movies or characters before our trip to Disneyland. She's had a Mickey Mouse doll for a long time (courtesy, I think, of Dan and Betty) that she ignored until two days ago. Yesterday, she slept with Mickey (she refers to him as "the Disneyland mouse", or she did before yesterday anyway) at nap and at night. Both times, she fell right asleep with no fussing, no songs, no second visits by Michael or me to her room. That NEVER happens and I do mean never. I don't believe I have ever gotten her to sleep for her nap without songs before.

Given all that, I had some hope that the Disneyland trip might finally be the new thing that loosens the hold the Wright Brothers have on our girl's imagination. The answer to the inspirational question for this post seemed to be that Disney characters would win.

But those pesky Wright Brothers! Persistence is always mentioned as one of the character traits that made them successful, so I shouldn't have been so quick to count them out. Yesterday afternoon, I started noticing that Mickey was being called Will an awful lot and by bedtime, he WAS Will. Today, we went to town to drop Michael at the airport and Darcy insisted that both Wilbur and Orville had to go -- and she wasn't talking about Michael and me (although we are both still Orv and Will). Mickey/Will and Orv (represented by a blue-clothed doll) play acted the most important scenes of the Wright Brothers story over and over in the car. They crashed. They played out the whole typhoid scenario. And on the ride home, I kept hearing Mickey/Will say, "I love scrapping with you, Orv. You're such a good scrapper!" This quotation (usually, "I love scrapping with Orv. He's such a good scrapper!") shows up in a lot of biographies when talking about how the Wright Brothers argued about things all the time.

Darcy has taken the most-recognized mascot of Disneyland and turned him into a Wright Brother. My conclusion: The Wright Brothers win. My other conclusion? We're going to be living with Will and Orv for quite a while longer.

I'm going to give them their very own tag. Sigh.

A Silhouette to Remember

I generally manage to resist souvenirs and so-called memorabilia from theme parks and other tourist traps (i.e., except for those darling figurines I got from Precious Moments Park in Carthage, Missouri--who could resist children shedding single teardrops, all captured in delicate porcelain?!). I admit, however, that when it comes to Darcy Jo, I tend to splurge. Frequently, I splurge on crap. Walking down Main Street in Disneyland, however, I spent $9 for a cut-out piece of black paper glued to card stock. And it was all for me! Oh yeah--it was for Angela, too. And Granny Mimi.

Now, just look at that! Is there no profile better suited to silhouette...art...-istry?! That noggin! Those curls!

When I was a boy, I remember looking through my mother's big box of family photos and coming across a vintage paper bag from Disneyland. In it were very similar-looking silhouettes of both my mother and father. I remember being pretty much amazed at the detail. I assumed that something like this must have taken forever to create: First, someone took a series of photographs of my parents in profile. They were then told to return at closing time, after the images had been developed and the scissors artist had carefully and faithfully followed the contours of each hair, each characteristic facial curve.

As it turns-out, however, it's nothing like that at all...

We walked into the Main Street shop and, immediately to our left, facing the storefront window, sat a lady dressed in Victorian clothes. I said, "Hello." I think she returned the greeting, but before I could even begin some sort of request for services, I noticed her hands moving. She was looking at Darcy Jo while cutting black paper with what looked like a toenail-grooming scissors. I kid you not, in less than a minute she was done. No photos. No wait. Nine dollars.

Turns-out this woman's been doing this for 35 years. In the same little store on Disneyland's Main Street. With the same scissors, you think? Maybe she even cut-out my young parents' silhouettes (I haven't done the math...). Amazing. As soon as Darcy Jo was finished, another couple with their children came-in. Before I could even finish paying the cashier for my souvenir silhouette, what witch (how else do you explain it?) had finished cutting a faithful profile of a toddler asleep in his stroller. Nine dollars. NEXT!!

Oh, Disneyland...