I loved my second job. I emptied garbage cans for $82 a week.
For an hour each night, I also walked behind a horse during the nightly parade down Main Street, hoping he wouldn’t make me run in front of thousands of onlookers with a pan and broom to sweep up a pile of stored apples and hay he ate during the day.
My shoes were always sticky from the ice cream from Borden’s Corner, but it was a fair trade during the summer when Walt Disney World booked a decent band to play in front of Cinderella’s Castle.
As a high school junior and senior, Disney was truly magical. But believe me, it is not a small world.
It’s been more than 30 years since I’ve been to the Magic Kingdom. The costs have ballooned, but the attractions —these are not called rides — are the same.
When you work at Disney, you must adjust to their way of thinking. The huge lake in front of the Magic Kingdom is called Seven Seas Lagoon. Actually, it was a hole created by construction workers who used the dirt to raise the park’s ground high enough to avoid flooding. Eventually, the hole filled with water, making the lake.
When I worked there in 1974, admission was $5.25. In 1975, it increased to $6. Now, depending on the season, it costs anywhere from $109 to $189 a person to stand in line at the Hall of Presidents (we called it the HOP), unless you paid an extra $10 to $25 a ticket for the Lightning Lane Multi Pass that allows you to skip to the front of the line.
There were so many subtle things you were taught before you ever stepped on stage. That’s right, when you were on the clock, you were on stage, not working. While we’re at it, visitors were called guests, not customers. They cooked French fries, not fries, in shortening, not grease. They have restrooms, not bathrooms, because there are no showers or tubs. And they always replace the rolls of toilet paper with tissue that releases from the top.
The way trash was removed was ingenious 50 years ago, and it remains that way now. Most larger restaurants and territories like Main Street, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland and Liberty Square/Frontierland have an underground pneumatic tube called AVAC (Automated Vacuum Assisted Collection) system. I could pack four or five cans of trash, not garbage, in the AVAC, close the lid and wait for the buzzer to sound. Then a giant vacuum would suck the trash through a series of tubes to a single collection point far away from guests.
Once the suction stops and the buzzer sounds, you can raise the lid and refill it.
I was on stage from 5 p.m. to 1:45 a.m., and my territory was Main Street. That’s a lot of garbage cans at closing time, because it includes the Monorail and Paddleboat stations.
It also included the Hub – the circle in front of Cinderella’s Castle. Like a wagon wheel, each land is accessible from the Hub. It’s where most guests congregated at 10 p.m. for fireworks and for summer concerts.
I saw some great shows there like Righteous Brothers and Blood, Sweat and Tears. I also endured three shows a night for a week of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. I started getting "goofy" every time I heard “Do a Little Dance, Make a Little Love, Get Down Tonight.”
Another fun fact, the reason you never saw someone wearing a Jungle Cruise costume – never a uniform – in Tomorrowland was because there are nine acres of “tunnels” under the Magic Kingdom, so cast members get around and only appear in their designated areas.
(Parents, don’t let your children read this:) Breakrooms were in the tunnels, and it was comical to see “Mickey” with his big shoes, red shorts and no head sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette while watching a game. And many “Mickeys” were “Minnies,” if you know what I mean.
One of my other responsibilities as the custodial lead for Main Street in 1975 was scheduling cast members to ride Space Mountain for one hour every day for a week before it opened, to ensure nobody got sick or developed a sore neck.
Back then, we got paid to ride Space Mountain. Now you must pay extra to jump to the front of the line.
