60 to 60

27.05.2026


My father’s favorite ride at the Anaheim Disneyland was Peter Pan’s Flight, the one where, once the family was buckled in, a disembodied Pan cheerfully exclaimed, “Come on, everybody! Here we go!” I don’t know if it brought back memories of visiting the new park with his father or if it was just an opportunity to escape the Southern California summer heat for a blessèd three minutes.

The Flight opened when the park opened, back in 1955, when Dad would have been 12. The old-old man wound up buried in Glendale’s Forest Lawn Memorial Park, a stone’s throw from Walt, so there is a possibility that he may have taken little Louie to the Happiest Place on Earth before taking the final trip to Never Never Land himself by the end of the decade.

Disney’s far-right leanings certainly jibes with what I know about the guy. Perhaps they knew each other from German-American Bund picnics out in La Crescenta’s Hindenburg Park (later, the site of California’s first Octoberfest in 1957).

Whatever the reason, Pan’s exhortation entered the family lexicon early on. Whenever we were gathered together to go anywhere, the clarion call was sounded and God save anyone in the way.

As I enter the final approach toward 60, I can’t think of any other rallying cry that might drive these old bones over the line, although I admit that I am finding it hard to muster a fraction o the Prince of Lost Boys’ brio. I’m afraid that today—at best—it sounds resigned yet resolute.

Come on, everybody. Here we go.