I was visiting our local library, looking up and down the aisles finding almost nothing that I wanted to read. Then I found Disney’s Land, Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed the World by Richard Snow. I checked it out and finished it. It was surprisingly good, with just the right amount of detail.
The main reason I was attracted to the book was nostalgia. Disneyland was about 10 miles from my house growing up. There is not a time in my memory when our family did not go to Disneyland every year. So, I’m one of those people afflicted (and I’m far from the only one) with a strong case of Disney nostalgia.
Starting in the late 1930’s Walt Disney had achieved success with his animated movies. Later, the idea came to him of building a theme park. It would be different from other amusement parks, which at that time often had a seedy reputation as dirty and treating people as ‘marks’ (someone to separate from their money) by ‘barkers’ who hustled them. Disney wanted to make something different and better; something that had not been done before.
Of course, every dream has a starting point of inspiration. Disney has a saying, ‘It all started with a mouse’. But it appears to me that it also started with a miniature steam train.
Disney loved steam trains. He loved the clanging and whistles and all that went with it. On his property in Los Angeles he built a small-gauge track around his house; small, but big enough that people could ride on the train. He had a miniature steam engine called Lilly Belle (named after his wife, Lillian). This engine was refurbished down to the last ornamental detail. Disney ordered passenger cars and took a year to build the caboose himself.
But there was a problem: Lillian did not want the track or train to block the line of sight to the garden, lest she and her lady friends have the view obscured while they played Canasta. So Disney decided to build a tunnel at that section, so the train would go underground and not block the view. Of course this meant extra expense.
Then someone suggested, and Disney agreed, that the tunnel be shaped like an S. This way the light at the far end could not be seen when the train entered. The riders would be in darkness for a time. This effect would add to the experience.
Of course, having the tunnel be S-shaped would add even more to the cost. When someone suggested they go back to making the tunnel straight, Disney kept with the S plan and told his secretary he didn’t want to hear any more about the mounting expenses.
And so it was built. It was so good that the artist Salvador Dali was spooked by it, saying “Such perfection did not belong to models.” Many people rode the train and got the special experience of going through the tunnel, with its brief time of darkness.
Then one day there was an accident. Someone drove the train too fast and it went off the tracks at a curve. There was also a minor injury from the scalding steam when it leaked out. Immediately Disney said, “That’s it. I want it outta here. Take it back to the studio and store it in the machine shop.” And that was the end of the train at his house. It only ran for about three years. Train and track cost about $50,000 (in 1950’s dollars).
This whole project would seem like a costly, short-lived waste. But it was an early example of the ‘unreasonable’ perfectionism that Disney would later carry into the Disneyland project.
The Disneyland railroad was inspired, or at least informed, by the experience with his home railroad. Like his home railroad, the Disneyland railroad engines would be steam powered–even though it would have been much easier to use diesel engines. These engines even had to feel and sound like authentic, old-fashioned steam engines. When the designers had originally made the engines with exact manufacturing tolerances, they worked too well–they lacked the clanging and clacking that accompanied historic steam engines. They didn’t seem authentic! The workers had to take the engines apart and put in looser tolerances between when rebuilding them in order to get the rough, authentic effects.
This kind of perfectionism, multiplied countless times, marked Disney’s standards for his new theme park. Naturally, his efforts were often met with a chorus of opposition. But he pressed on, even borrowing against his own life insurance to help finance the park. Delays, debts, countless problems did not deter him. Some ideas didn’t pan out. But enough of them did.
Does this story have anything to do with spiritual things? No, not directly. But there is something about the zeal of Disney’s vision for what he believed in that seems to contain a lesson.
Do we have zeal for our spiritual calling? Romans 12:11 says, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” Are we willing to be zealous enough to take chances for the Lord’s sake? To be criticized for in the course of His service? Are we willing to do be ‘unreasonable’ in the eyes of others?
Oswald Chambers, in his famous book, My Utmost for His Highest, says that we should pour out God’s blessings back to Him rather than clutch them for ourselves: “you must sacrifice it, pour it out, do with it what common sense says is an absurd waste,” (Sept. 3). That idea of doing “what common sense says is an absurd waste” is so biblical. Time and again in scripture we read of God calling people to obey Him rather than allow the vision to be killed by a thousand technicalities and practical considerations.
For example we read of king Saul disobeying God by taking spoils of war he was forbidden to take. Afterwards he gave the excuse, “they [the soldiers] spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God,” (1 Samuel 15:15). God was not impressed (this is putting it mildly). The prophet Samuel rebuked him, “To obey is better than sacrifice,” (vs. 22). Saul should have followed the Lord’s direction, no matter how ‘wasteful’ it might have seemed.
Disney was willing to risk it all to get Disneyland. Do we have that same kind of zeal for the things of God?