Legends

by Sturgis...

“This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!”

Dutton Peabody, Editor; The Shinbone Star to Senator Rance Stoddard; from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” Directed by John Ford

Spring Break in the early Seventies, J--- and some cronies were planning to climb a major peak in Canada or South American, depending on which version of the story you hear, but the expedition fell through at the last minute. Perhaps everyone sobered up. In any case, driving into Los Angeles in a fog of disappointment, J--- came up with an alternative plan: he would go to Disneyland and surreptitiously climb the enormous hollow pile of plaster and scaffolding painted to look like an Alpine peak known as “The Matterhorn”.

J--- bought his entry ticket and looked for a possible route to the summit. A roller coaster snaked in and out of the mountain past plastic boulders and fake glaciers. Two actors dressed as Victorian alpinists in wool, hobnail boots and knickers labored up and down the mountain, dripping sweat in the Southern California heat. But security was too tight. As a civilian he would never break through the sturdy barriers the Disney Company had erected between tourist and employee, between fantasy and reality. So J--- refined his plan. He found somewhere to hide and he waited until the park closed.

Nowadays there are night watchmen, cameras and motion detectors all over the park, the result, J--- says, of the legendary week he spent as the Phantom of Disneyland. But back then he was alone. He discovered a network of underground tunnels and secret passageways that linked all the attractions, another world entirely, filled with opportunities for adventure and mischief. He climbed the Matterhorn the next morning after spending the night hidden in a souvenir stand. The actor-alpinists turned out to be actual climbers just earning a living, scaling and descending the Matterhorn again and again like Sisyphus and yodeling their brains out for the amusement of the tourists when the roller coaster cars went by until the weekend when they could get themselves to the High Sierra for some real climbing. They were congenial companions; no one noticed the third mountaineer in blue jeans and they smoked a joint at the summit, looking out over the “happiest place on earth.” With the clear vision of the very stoned, J--- decided to stay in the park a few more nights. The climbers thought this a great joke on their employers. They gave him tips on navigating the park and promised not to rat him out.

The Phantom first came to the attention of the authorities in “Adventure Land,” a water ride sedate enough for the little ones and the elderly and slow enough to give J---- opportunities to join in the fun. The boats are done up like the African Queen and glide through an approximation of a jungle, the passengers periodically menaced by various creatures but protected by a guide dressed as a great white hunter in a khaki shirt, jodhpurs and a sidearm. J--- appeared alongside three animatronic Hottentots that brandished spears and chanted “Ugga Bugga.” His hair was teased out into a Jew ‘fro and he was smeared with mud to match the tribal war paint of his puppet compatriots. His little spear appeared to be the kind sold at the gift shop but he chanted as enthusiastically as any other electronic savage. A startled passenger screamed, “That one’s real!” When the distraught guide attempted to report this anomaly in the tightly scripted Disney universe, his superiors didn’t believe him.

J--- liked Adventure Land. Not only were the people in charge slow to realize they had a problem, but J--- could cling to the back of an animatronic hippo, breathing through a straw, until the beast rose out of the water to threaten the boats, with J--- naked on top bucking and rearing and whooping it up like a rodeo cowboy and scaring the crap out of everyone.

The Phantom made several appearances as a not-so-cute, not-so-diminutive singer in “It’s a Small World After All” and he spent a night or two in the elaborate tree house of The Swiss Family Robinson, thereby realizing the dreams of a million American children. He flirted with Cinderella and Tinkerbelle. He fed himself from the unattended concession stands. There were lots of places to hide and Disneyland is nothing if not a great place to wear a disguise. J--- says those costumes are diabolically uncomfortable, particularly Goofy. No wonder the employees he met gave him a wink and a nod. Stick it to the man, Phantom!

J--- was finally caught after a roof top chase along Main Street USA. J--- didn’t really care. Spring Break was almost over and he was sick of park food. Unamused security personnel escorted him out of the park past crowds of tourists on Main Street USA. He managed to extract from his clothing, despite the handcuffs, a little American flag that he vigorously waved. The crowd burst into applause, thinking it all part of the show.

Ever conscious of their public image and loathe to give the Phantom story any legs, the Disney Company did not press charges, although J--- is banned from all Disney Company properties in perpetuity.

J---- has built a successful career out of this and his many subsequent adventures as a traveler, author and anthropologist. He is a motivational speaker, exhorting corporate clients to break out of their humdrum lives and follow the “way of adventure” a phrase that J---has trademarked. The pictures of him dressed up as Indiana Jones on his marketing material always make me laugh. You see, I know the grand and hilarious tale of the Phantom of Disneyland is a complete fabrication, the origin myth and the warrior legend of a tribe of one from the country of J---.

Here is one of my legends. My name is Henry Sturgis Grew Robinson, but I have always been known as Sturgis. It is a very good name for an adult, but the best that can be said of it during one’s middle school years is that it built character. Even my friends called me by the obvious nickname for some one named Sturgis. Need a hint? Larry, Moe and Curly. The first girl I ever kissed, after our lips separated, fluttered her eye lids, heaved a great bosomy sigh and said “Oh...Stooge!”

But that kissing part is a true story. Here is the legend. One day in my teens I went to the town hall to get a birth certificate so that I could apply for a passport. To my amazement, the document revealed my legal first name to be Henry. I confronted my mother. Because I was certain to be her last child she had demanded that I be named after her beloved and dying father, Henry Sturgis Grew. But my father hated everyone in my mother’s tribe who, he felt, had condescended to him as a social inferior throughout his courtship of and marriage to my mother. He particularly disliked his father-in-law and in my father’s defense, my mother is the only person I ever heard say anything nice about Henry Sturgis Grew, a pompous, philandering and arrogant mediocrity soon to be unmourned even by his wife. But my mother felt strongly about this and after what can only have been weeks of phlegmatic Episcopalian disagreement, they reached a compromise: I would indeed become Henry Sturgis Grew Robinson but no one would ever, ever call me Henry.

Having revealed the dreaded family secret, my mother then looked around furtively, put her finger to her lips and said: “Shush, dear, don’t let your father hear...”

I have told this story or variations of it as long as I can remember. People often ask how I came to have a name like Sturgis and I tell them this story. It gives me a chance to make fun of my parents and their stolid New England-ness and it segues nicely into the story of my first kiss. It’s a good story and it is a total and utter lie, made up by me God knows when or why and grafted onto me as permanently as my own right arm. My real first name is not Henry.

Are we liars, J--- and I? Have we pulled something over on the world? J--- has made story-telling his career and does it well. Some of his stories are even true, I suppose. What is the harm if he has embellished a few things here or there? I really am Sturgis Grew Robinson and I really do come from a stuffy New England family. Why shouldn’t I illustrate my life with a fable or two?

J--- is a tribe of one in his own country and I am the prophet, the pope and the congregation of the church of Sturgis. We have our creation myths, our origin stories; we are legends in our own minds. Life is hard enough without imagining yourself just a little more interesting, a little more funny, maybe a little more immortal than you really are.