What It Was Like to Grow Up Right Next to Disneyland

I grew up in Anaheim, California.  We lived in three different places during my childhood but all within a couple miles of Disneyland.  When we first moved there, I could literally throw a baseball onto the hotel property.  I went to the three schools closest to Disneyland-- Palm Lane, Ball Jr. High and Loara High School.

Of course, as a kid you don't always realize the significance of things.  I didn't know that I was growing up in a really great place because I didn't know any different.  We would go to the beach once a week in the summer, we would play "ditch" in the summer in our neighborhood and then watch the Disneyland fireworks at 9 pm and afterwards we knew it was time to go home.      

I have often been asked, "Wow, if you grew up next to Disneyland, then you probably went all the time?"  No, not really.  Disneyland was (and even more now) expensive and I grew up in a broken home.  I probably went as often as any other kid in southern California-- maybe four or five times in my childhood.  They didn't have annual passes back then.  

When I was a teenager I got a job working for a company that had items for sale on Main Street.  I would go into the park, resupply the merchandise and take off.  It was fun to see "behind the scenes."  There is a whole world behind what the public sees.   Disney employees had their own entrances, food choices and even a bank on property behind the walls of what the public would see.

One of my high school friends' family owned the land of what was the Disneyland parking lot (now California Adventure).  How's that for an investment?  They had leased the land to Disneyland for the parking lot use and I understand they eventually sold for a very tidy sum.  That girl drove to school in a brand new car one day in high school-- lucky her!

When I was a kid, Disneyland was a special place but it was not the mammoth, billion dollar enterprise that it is today.  28,000 people are employed by Disney in southern California!  Wow.  The hotels, development, infrastructure and opportunity that Disney brought to Orange County is extraordinary.  It was a fun place to grow up.