The Night the Haunted Mansion Followed Me Home
How a childhood visit to Disneyland became a memory I’ve carried with me for more than fifty years!
As you know by now, I grew up just a few miles from Disneyland and had a cousin who lived just literally down the street from the park. I have great memories of being at his house as a kid and hearing the Mark Twain whistle from his house! Summer brought memories of watching the fireworks from the front yard. Another memory inside the park was looking up at the ominous sign on the lamppost outside the completed mansion building with gates shut tight that let us know that they were busy recruiting ghosts, that they were to apply to the Ghost Relations Dept before we would be able to enter the gates. That set up anticipation like no other ride in Disneyland has ever done before! Especially to a 7-8 year old!
Fast forward to August 1969, my cousin Jon & I couldn’t wait to see what the mansion had in store after waiting for years to see the new ride. Our first trip to Disneyland on our own, yes, we were 10 & 11 years old, this was 1969 and no one thought twice about our being there without an adult! We were there at rope-drop and ran to the Matterhorn since it had the longest lines and we wanted to get the day off to a great start! As the day went on, we decided to wait to ride the Haunted Mansion until it was dark, a decision that my cousin was more comfortable with than me.
I’ll never forget waiting in line, entering the first room with that eerie, flickering chandelier and the stretching room that followed. I was glued to my cousin’s back who always acted brave but was just as scared as I. The ride didn’t disappoint, in fact, we knew that this was our new, most favorite ride after Pirates of the Caribbean that had premiered just 2 years previously. We thought we had done it, we rode Mansion and we were brave and fearless but that feeling would be short-lived.
On a Saturday night only a couple of months later, my parents drove me to my cousin’s house , they were going out to dinner with my Aunt & Uncle. Jon & I decided to stay home and order pizza to be delivered and watch TV, one of our favorite things to do. Parents left, pizza came, and we had just started to eat when we heard the wind outside blowing loudly through the trees. We had only eaten maybe 1 slice of that delicious pizza when the lights went out. Or more accurately, they almost went out, just enough electricity to barely light them. We wondered what had happened, and wandered through the house towards the front door when we saw the chandelier in the entry hall hanging there, candle lights flickering, just like the one in the Haunted Mansion!
We ran out of the house so fast it was like one of those cartoons where the characters’ feet spin! We went to a neighbor’s house a couple of blocks away where the electricity was still on and found comfort there. About an hour later a phone call came from my Aunt & Uncle wondering if we were there and could we please come home. We found out the wind had blown a large tree branch down on the electric wires just down the street and had caused the brown-out. By the time we got home all was well except we had left the pizza on the couch and the dog had eaten the whole thing and then proceeded to vomit it back out all over the house. Oh well, so much for being brave!
I’ve since rode the Mansion numerous times with Jon, then with girlfriends, and eventually, with my wife & kids, who have heard this story several times since. the Haunted Mansion holds a special place in my heart as Jon is no longer with us but my memories of growing up with him are more precious than ever. This painting is my version of the mansion, it is closer to how the mansion appeared to us as we rode it that first time, a little scarier than it is in actuality. A living memory of that fateful first night at the mansion, and how I shared it with my cousin. This painting is dedicated to that first visit to the Haunted Mansion. I hope you enjoy it!
“View the Mansion Beyond the Gate”