What If Walt Went West Instead of South? by Jerry Flanagan

A Series of What-If and My-Best-Guess Suppositions

By Jerry Flanagan

What-If the Los Angeles Examiner headline on July 18, 1955, read:

The Day Magic Became Real: Disneyland Opens in Canoga Park

Walt Disney, founder of the animation studio bearing his name, opened the gates to Disneyland in San Fernando Valley’s Canoga Park yesterday. The theme park welcomed 33,000 visitors on this first day.

Have you ever wondered where we would be today if Disneyland had opened in the San Fernando Valley instead of Anaheim? 

Before Opening Day

It was September 1953 when Walt Disney announced plans for a new Disneyland Park in Southern California. Canoga Park, on the west end of the San Fernando Valley (SFV), was a strong candidate for the park’s site because it was within reasonable proximity to the Disney Studios in Burbank. At the time of the actual announcement, my Dad was in the navy working as an airplane mechanic on Coronado Island, and we were living in naval housing where UC San Diego is today. Just 5 months earlier, my Mom gave birth to twins—me and my sister Janice—and my sister Judy would follow soon thereafter. After his discharge in 1954, Dad and Mom moved back to Los Angeles (LA), where they grew up, and Dad worked in construction while attending college to get his degree in police science. My parents were 24 years old and expecting a fourth kid when, seeking a path to a suburban Promised Land, they identified their future home in a new subdivision in West Anaheim about four miles from what would become known as “the happiest place on earth." The house was under construction when they somehow scraped together the down payment for their $10,000 dream home with 1100 square feet and three bedrooms and two baths. 

We moved to Anaheim in 1956, and the LAPD accepted my father into the ranks of law enforcement, where he worked and retired as a detective in Robbery and Homicide after 25 years. During those years, they stayed in the same home, and Dad, as a DIY carpenter (with some help from me), doubled its size to accommodate our growing family that would soon become nine. Oh, and he did this and paid for Catholic school educations for all the kids by working a side gig as a bouncer on weekends at the “World Famous” Pantry Café in LA. They never refinanced the house and proudly paid off the original mortgage after 30 years. My father died in that house in 1999. 

Opening Day in Canoga Park

So that is our history in Anaheim, but What-if Canoga Park was chosen as the site for Disneyland? The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) produced an extensive report for Disney to study the options for the park’s best location and delivered it to him in 1953. Multiple San Fernando Valley locations were strong candidates, with Canoga Park being the strongest. If Disney selected Canoga Park, then My-Best-Guess is my parents would have settled down in SFV with their burgeoning new family because the commute to work for my Dad would have been more manageable. Besides, both of their families still resided in the city and SFV was a short drive through the Hollywood Hills.

If they wanted to keep that four-mile distance from Disneyland-Canoga Park, My-Best-Guess is we would have ended up in one of the local communities like Chatsworth or Reseda. And instead of our parish being St. Justin in Anaheim, then My-Best-Guess is it would have been St. Catherine of Siena in Reseda or Our Lady of Grace in Encino. But then there was high school.

Servite High School?

The Baby Boom was in full force in the early 1950s, and the population in Southern California was exploding. Cardinal James McIntyre headed the archdiocese, and he invited the Chicago province of the Servants of Mary to assist with Catholic education in the region. Servite High School opened in 1959 in Anaheim, but What-If my parents wanted to maintain a proximate distance to LA after Disneyland-Canoga Park opened? Then My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Notre Dame High School in my freshman year in 1967. The Servants of Mary would have discovered that the market for Catholic boys' high schools in the San Fernando Valley was saturated, since Notre Dame High School had been established in Sherman Oaks in 1947 by the same religious order that also founded the university in South Bend, Indiana. 

Instead of Friars as our mascot, we would be the Knights.

Instead of a costumed monk, it would be a leprechaun roaming the stands at football games.

Instead of school colors being black and white, they would be green and gold.

Instead of Friar Writers (as labeled on our current website), we would be known as Knight Writers.

Instead of our archrival being the Mater Dei Monarchs, it would be the Crespi Celtics of Encino.

My high school classmates would have hailed from far-flung communities like Burbank, Glendale, Van Nuys, and Encino instead of Fullerton, Whittier, Newport Beach, and the Mojave Desert.

College and Beyond

And then there is college. What-if I had not met my Servite and Cypress College friend, Andy Prendiville, who suggested I join him in transferring to UC Santa Barbara and rooming with him, Tony Passante, and Ron Briggs (class of 1970) in Isla Vista? If that hadn’t happened, then My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Pierce Community College and then transferred to either CSU Northridge or UCLA and missed out on an adventurous coming-of-age experience that, as Mark Twain describes, “is just before the 'inevitable tragedy' of responsible life begins.” 

I was always a geeky nerd and wore glasses since the third grade because I was very nearsighted. But What-if I had normal vision and I had not majored in chemistry but instead majored in the humanities or social sciences? My-Best-Guess is I would have followed the same path as all my college roommates! Law School! No offense to attorneys reading this, but…Gag-Me-With-A-Spoon! 

Since I used a Valley girl reference, What-if I had not met my wife Mindy at UCSB? My-Best-Guess is I would have met and “totally” married a Valley Girl. “Oh my God," life would have been so different!

What-if Mindy had not hailed from San Diego, where I followed and married her and raised our family? My-Best-Guess is I would have found a career in science or engineering in SFV and worked at a firm like Rocketdyne. Who knows, I may have become a rocket scientist!

Disneyland Again

Back to Disneyland. It was 1953, and after reading the SRI report and seeing Anaheim as the top site recommendation, What-If Walt Disney had not hopped in his car, bounded south on Interstate 5, broken through Los Angeles’ smog-shrouded downtown, and entered the flat, peaceful valley of farmland with blue skies and clean air that was covered with orange groves and walnut trees? SRI consultants called the area around Ball Road and the I-5 freeway “the amoeba" because it was a broad, freeway‑centered zone for projected population growth.

This German-founded town had ample land for growth, and it was reasonably priced. He discovered a city eager to create something distinctive, free from bureaucratic obstacles, and featuring a user-friendly municipal electric grid. A small town that reminded him of his hometown of Marceline, Missouri, that he could replicate; in the entry, a magical, serene downtown Main Street that would fit his vision of welcoming visitors that took them back to the turn of the century and buffered them from the complexities of modern life. 

My parents dreamed of a brighter future for their children and embraced the Disney vision, which revolved around this place, "Where Magic Gets Real." Although I never got to ask them how much the Magic Kingdom influenced their choice to live in the shadow of the Matterhorn, I am grateful they moved to Anaheim to escape the stifling city life of LA. 

A Place and a Time 

I have read the accounts of those on this blog who had brushes with the Viet Nam War draft after our 1971 graduation. My lottery number was in the high 100s, but What-If if my father served in WWII vs. the Korean War, and we ended up in Reseda in 1951 instead of Anaheim in 1956? By broadening the focus from solely place—Disneyland and Anaheim—to include time, the concept of place itself would necessarily be redefined. There was no lure of Disneyland as the suburban Promised Land; instead, it would have been to maintain proximity to the city of LA that had widespread appeal with growth fueled by the GI Bill, Hollywood glamour, and ample jobs. What-If our family’s parish was St. Catherine of Siena in Reseda? I would have attended grade school there, memorized the same Baltimore catechism, and become a dedicated altar boy. My-Best-Guess is I would have attended Notre Dame High School, graduating in 1966. The cultural orientation would have been conformity, social norms, and respect for authority, accompanied by John Glenn, John Wayne, and Sandy Koufax as our high school heroes. My-Best-Guess is that my musical heroes would have been Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and Frankie Avalon. And let us not forget the Viet Nam War; the reality of seeing combat in Southeast Asia out of high school would have been very real. 

What-We-Got 

But then in 1963, the Kennedy assassination shifted consciousness in ways that had significant downstream consequences. I would have been a freshman at Notre Dame in 1963, but just five years later, in 1968, our freshman year, What-We-Got were two assassinations, MLK and RFK, the Chicago riots at the Democratic convention, and Richard Nixon’s election. Technology advances gave us the Apollo 11 mission, and we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on our TV sets during the summer of 1969. 

Our heroes changed too: Jerry West, Tom Wolfe and Jack Nicholson became the cultural figures we looked up to. And let us not forget the music. What-We -Got was The Beatles' release of Sergeant Pepper and The Doors' first album in 1967. Followed by the Stones, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Creedence, Grateful Dead, and the Who, who would release landmark albums later. The new emerging LA sound with the Eagles and Byrds defined our high school experience, and Iron Butterfly would play the Servite homecoming dance.

What-If Walt Disney had not taken that drive down I-5 on that fateful day and these events had not happened? I do not think I would be posting this essay to the 71WAnon site and planning for the next Zoom call here in 2026. And now we have notifications in our inbox of a 55-year reunion party that I do not believe other classes typically celebrate. We are fortunate to have these moments, and those afforded by telling our stories and reading these essays from our Friar brothers at this stage when our lights are inexorably dimming.

Overall, I would not trade the place and the time where and when we grew up in Orange County. We managed to avoid a draft for a war we did not want, we survived political upheaval, and most of us transitioned into a normal college experience and career path. For my part, I am pleased that the headline in the July 18, 1955, Los Angeles Herald read something like:

The Day Magic Became Real: Disneyland Opens in Anaheim

 

The Golden Warrior by Don Taco

 The Golden Warrior by Don Taco ©2026

 

         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, idly whining about the weather. "Zombie weather," Marga muttered. Bek snorted, while Tierna started making that hissing sound that strongly suggested that this tired old joke wasn't funny any more. Don't let anyone try to tell you that all elves are lighthearted and jolly. This one isn't. The smoke drifted carelessly into Bek's face, but he sat stoically, since the smoke always drifted into his face, and he knew moving would be pointless. Abeth had once said to him, "The smoke loves you. The gods alone know why, since no one else does." A split second later, Bek was behind her, and his blade was at her throat. "My mother loves me," he said, in a dangerously calm, quiet tone. Abeth very quietly declined to mention that she was joking, and never commented on it again, but she continued to observe that the smoke did indeed seem to adore Bek and want to be near him. She assumed it must be some minor curse, since she could simply not fathom it as a random event, and even less as a blessing. Bek seemed resigned to it, though he did sometimes drift randomly around the fire, rather than huddle nearby for warmth.

         Hours later, after the sun had sunk behind the distant ridge, and the sky was not quite dark but merely gloomy, Tierna stood abruptly, peered attentively into the middle distance, and raised a palm for silence. The others immediately picked up the weapons they had laid nearby. It wasn't always Tierna who first spotted trouble brewing, but it was never a surprise. Elves have the most acute senses, of course, but the others agree, behind her back, that she's naturally quite paranoid. No one is complaining. It has kept them ahead of deep trouble many times. Tierna indicated a direction, and waved Bek and Marga towards the nearby bushes, a flanking maneuver. They had scarcely reached cover when the first of the zombies shambled into the clearing.

         Abeth moved quickly back from the fire, turning her back on the obvious danger, and scanning to be sure nothing else was coming from an unexpected direction. It was uncommon for the undead to exhibit any real cunning, but the group hadn't survived all this time by being careless. She knew Tierna would catch up to her soon. Tierna was backing away slowly, allowing the creatures to get in range of her senses. There were at least four of them. Possibly no more, unless some were lagging and still in the cover of the forest. Unlikely. She could easily see that the broadswords they wielded were rusty, and therefore not silvered, and once they were close enough, she could detect no magic on them. She barked out, "No magic!" and darted back until she rejoined Abeth. Seeing her, Abeth remarked, "Looks clear so far," turned, and loosed an arrow at the first of the pack. Then spun around to keep watch behind them as she nocked the next arrow. Tierna began preparing a spell.

         Marga stayed in a kneeling position behind her chosen bush, tripod-stable, and she too loosed an arrow, but at the second zombie. Luck was with her, and she pinned its arm to its side, causing it to drop its shield. Bek finished shifting into wolf form. At Tierna's call, he gowled with deliberate menace, and launched himself at the leader. Marga readied a second shot.

         Knowing that none of the attackers could hurt Bek without magical or silvered weapons, the others played it safe, and let him do the dirty work. Marga and Abeth each launched another arrow, and watched for additional combatants, or other unpleasant surprises. Abeth's trick shot, an attempt to pass through the neck of two of the zombies, neatly zipped past them both. "Ah, well," she thought to herself. "At least I won't have to clean that one."

         Bek reached the leader, and with a howl and a leap, bit furiously into one arm, and ripped it half off. Rolling to his feet, he spun around to charge again.

         "Down!" yelled Tierna. Bek flattened himself into a crouch. Lightning arched out from Tierna's fingertips as she completed loosing her spell. It crackled intensely as it passed through the first zombie, narrowly missed the second, continued until it struck a boulder, bounced back, and petered out at the sixty foot mark without hitting anything else. That zombie crumpled to the ground, both lifeless and inanimate.

         Without a second's hesitation, Bek charged the second zombie, leaping fully into its chest and knocking it to the ground. Marga and Abeth each let loose another arrow, doing only minor damage, since the remaining enemy weren't much more than skeletons. Tierna began preparing to cast again.

         In less than a minute, the four undead creatures were torn apart and no longer dangerous. No others appeared. Bek lay curled up on the ground near the fire, soft growls and whimpers coming from his throat, involuntarily it seemed. From long experience, the others knew to bring him water and let him be until he recovered. Forunately, it wasn't daylight, and he hadn't stayed in were form long. These transitions could be much more difficult at times. There were tales of those who had turned for too long and gotten stuck, requiring a major curse removal to regain human form.

         In the morning light, they looted the corpses. Corpses of corpses. Enough coppers and silvers to buy perhaps one good meal. A number of trinkets the undead had inexplicably been drawn to, and stashed in what remained of their pockets. The weapons and shields, and the one worthwhile breastplate, were piled up and tied into bundles for each of them to carry. "This is such a pain," Marga complained. "There's no value in these, and no one to sell them to anyway." Tierna replied, "We've been through this. The entire area is overun with undead, and if we leave these lying around, it's just as likely we'll be arming them against us." "We could bury them, instead of lugging them around," Marga answered. Tierna, with a characteristic touch of impatience, went on, "If we arm the citizenry, as we find them, they're better off against these attacks. And the blacksmiths we've found are more than happy to have the metal. The decision has been made. Whining won't change it." Abeth sighed heavily. Bek, as usual, just snorted.

         "What, in the name of the Nine Hundred Gods, do you think got us into this mess?" Abeth wondered. Bek snorted. Tierna answered thoughtfully, "My best guess is that some powerful necromancer raised an undead army to dominate these lands. And whoever passes for authority around here, or used to, fought them off. And both sides lost. We've passed any number of obvious battlefields. But no sign of a surviving force, and no one controlling the undead. Just farm-folk and townsmen trying to eke out a living from hard soil in deperate times." "I'll drink to that!" Marga responded. Abeth smirked, "You wish! When was the last decent tavern we found with anything but sour beer?" Marge muttered, "Whoever that guy was that said 'Go south, young man' ought to be roundly cursed."

         They shouldered their burdens and headed once again into the face of the south wind, hoping the next settlement wouldn't be too far away.

 

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         Tierna stood in the farmhouse kitchen with Alecki and his young wife Mylinda. Alecki repeated himself, "I don't get it. Why store these things if we can't use them? I can't plow a field holding a shield. Or waving a sword." Mylinda placed her hand on his arm, and quietly said, "Maybe if you'd give her a chance to explain, instead of protesting so much." Tierna went on, "No one expects you to run around armored. But this gives you the chance to, if needed. If attacked. And that's happening. You know it is. Also, we hope that distributing this equipment will keep it out of the hands of the zombies. They're dangerous enough unarmed." Mylinda said, "Why would the zombies pick up weapons and arm themselves? Aren't they basically brain-dead?" "We don't know," Tierna replied. "But all the undead we've been running into seem smarter or more disciplined than we would ever expect. As if they'd had some training, or instruction, and maybe are now just acting out of habit. It's a puzzle. For whatever reason, they all seem to be armed and armored. In any case, you're better off having these and not needing them than needing them and not having them."

         Alecki fell silent in the face of her logic.

         In the farmyard, Abeth and Marga were running the teenaged twins, Bill and Phil, through some basic exercises, designed to get them past the initial enthusiasm, and to a point where they were less likely to hurt themselves or each other with the unfamiliar weapons.

         Alecki sighed. "We're burning daylight, and I have wheat to harvest. Probably more than we can handle before those storm clouds defeat the mountains and sweep over us." Uncharacteristically, and to Tierna's surprise, Bek spoke up. "I reaped wheat as a boy. Can you use a hand? Eight hands? We can sleep in the barn, and we're used to slim rations."

         That night in the barn, Tierna asked, "What did you think of the boys? I didn't get much chance to watch them." Bek replied, "Farm boys. Used to hard work. Muscled. Disciplined. Good parenting, I'd bet. They'll be fine. Oh, maybe a small scar or two." Marga chimed in, "I was younger and smaller when I first learned to hold a sword." Abeth reminded her, "Yes, but you had actual training under actual masters." "True," Abeth replied. "But I saw real potential in those boys."

         In the closet-sized space they called their bedroom that night, Alecki confided to his wife, "That elven woman is disconcerting, to say the least. She doesn't look at you when she speaks to you." Mylinda replied, "That's not what's going on. She never takes her eyes off the horizon. She expects an assault at every moment. That must be a harsh life. Harder than ours, and this is no picnic."

         Four days later, after a surprisingly hearty meal, Alecki thanked them profusely. "I'd have lost at least a third of that crop without you." Mylinda presented them with a three pound sack of ground flour and a small bag of dried apples. Tierna protested, "This is a fortune!" "Well worth it," replied Alecki. Abeth chimed in, "You'll spoil us. We'll be dreaming of bacon next." Mylinda laughed. "Can't help you there."

         As they shouldered their packs and headed off down the road again, Mylinda walked with them to the nearby crossroads, lit a bundle of herbs, blessed the four directions, and told them, "Go with God." Tierna thought to herself, "Ah, but which god? All my gods seem angry or distant these days." All she said aloud was, "Thank you." Monotheists are notoriously easy to upset and quick to be insulted, and she had no desire to offend this obviously good woman. Mylinda turned her steps to home and the group continued their travels.

 

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         The twins had been sent back to the house to help prepare dinner when the attack came. They were in the barn, idly peeling potatos and dreaming of the upcoming harvest festival and a rare trip to town for fun instead of business. Mylinda was at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the scalded milk from the bottom of a pot she was done with, her eyes casually scanning the horizon, when she saw the undead lumbering out of the forest, swords in hand. "Oh my God, Allee's out there alone," she thought to herself, dropping everything and dashing to the hearth where the dented but polished breastplate had been propped up. Scrambling to get it on, she screamed, "Boys! Swords!" at the top of her lungs.

         Responding instinctively to a level of panic and desperation in their mother's voice that they had never even imagined, the twins sprinted to the old barrel they had stored the weapons in, grabbed a sword each, and headed out into the yard, where they found Mylinda headed at the speed of despair towards the fields. They fell in behind her, unable to keep up.

         When the first zombie lumbered into view, Alecki was caught completely off his guard, with nothing more dangerous nearby than a hoe. He swung wildly, out of sheer panic, and caught it in the side of its knee with the corner of the hoe. Flesh ripped and tore. The mostly skeletal remains clattered to the cround, deprived of balance, and of a working pair of legs. Horrified, Alecki watched as it continued to crawl towards him with barely diminished speed. "My God," he thought to himself, "They're moving at half speed, and I can't keep up." He backed away rapidly, a move he instantly regretted, as he stumbled into a second zombie he had not seen. It may have saved his life, though, as he stepped inside the arc of the creature's swing. The sword, near the hilt, bashed into his elbow, sending a wave of pain up his arm and a numbness down it. He fumbled with the hoe handle, trying to keep it in his grasp, as he spun and attempted to elude his attacker. That's when the third zombie caught him alongside his scalp with its broadsword. He went to his knees, losing the hoe, his senses reeling. The hand he had unthinkingly raised to his head came away bloody. He tried to think whose blood it could be, as he tumbled into the dirt. As the world began to spin, he saw a golden warrior charge into view, glowing like the sun and swinging a sword like it was a toothpick. He wondered if it was the Angel of Death, coming to take him to Heaven. Or Hell. Blood from his head wound trickled down into his eyes, sticky and warm. His vision faded. Something thumped into his side. He heard the tremendous crushing ring of steel on bone. And departed into the grey mists of unconciousness.

 

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         Bill came quietly into the kitchen, and said, with all the calm he could muster. "Mom, his eyelids are fluttering and he raised a finger. He might be coming to." She replied, "Get your brother," dried her hands on the dishtowel with a patience she did not feel, and came to the bedroom where they had carried Alecki and dressed his wounds. "Oh, Allee. Come back to us. Please come back to me," she murmured to herself. He looked as pale as before, but his breathing was deeper, less ragged. She sat at the side of the bed and prayed quietly. The twins soon joined her, slightly out of breath from running, not wanting to miss anything. "Dad?" Alecki stirred. Everyone's hopes rose.

         To their utter delight, his eyes fluttered open, for the first time since the battle three days before. The twin's excitement was palpable, but Mylinda held up her hand for silence, and they restrained themselves. "Allee?" "Dad?" Alecki shivered uncomfortably, and croaked, "Water?" Mylinda already had it in her hand. He sipped. Then managed a gulp. Sighed. "I feel terrible." "No wonder," Mylinda replied. "You were badly hurt." The boys jumped into the conversation, barely leaving room for each other to speak. "Mom was hurt, too! A skeleton maybe craked her rib!" "She just ignored it!" "You should have seen her, Dad!" "She charged in there like the bull does when he's really mad!" She kept knocking them down, and we'd beat on them!" "It was so gross!" The excitement in their voices was more than slightly out of synch with the horror in their words. Alecki shook his head in wonder. "I saw..." he started to say, then fumbled at the memory. "I saw a golden warrior flying at me. Shining like the sun. And then nothing. I can't remember anything." The twins and their mother all looked at each other, worry deepening their eyes. Alecki swallowed another sip of the water and drifted into the grey of a deep slumber.

         "God in Heaven! What's wrong with me?' Mylinda thought. "I let him talk. I should have made him eat." "Help me sit him up," she said to the boys, and they muscled him gently into a sitting position, punching the meager pillows and hoping he was comfortable. "I know it's hard, but you'd best be back to the chores," she said gently, and they nodded their understanding and headed back to the barn. Mylinda got the bowl of rich vegetable broth from the ice box, and tried spooning sips of it into his mouth, watching carefully to see if he'd swallow, like feeding a wounded baby bird. But without the cooperation of having hunger on her side. Or even a concious animal.

         Late that evening, Alecki woke again, this time with an appetite. He asked his family, "You really fought them off? With those swords?" Mylinda chuckled, and said, "You softened them up for us, honey." "Yeah. With my head," he replied. "But who was the warrior I saw?" Mylinda and the twins exchanged another worried glance. "There was no one else." Alecki shook his head, and immediately regretted it. "It seemed so real." He ate heartily, and slept peacefully, and they all slept better than they had all week.

         The following day, when Alecki woke again, he didn't seem quite himself. He struggled with their names at first, and was fitful and distracted. "I've got to get healthy," he muttered. That lower field isn't going to plow itself." Bill said quietly, "Dad, we finished plowing that field two weeks ago. Before the attack." "We did? Why don't I remember?"

 

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         That evening, in the kitchen after dinner, Bill asked, "Mom? Do you think Dad saw an angel? Do you think maybe the sun was shining on that armor you were wearing, and he just wasn't seeing clearly?" "I don't know, honey." She cupped his face between her hands and softly told him, "I just don't know. We have to remember that your father was hit in the head, very hard, and it hurt him. He might never really recover. Things might never be normal again." She turned back to the dishes in the sink, trying desperately to keep her tears from overwhelming her. Bill said, "Yeah. Hey, I was going to spread straw in the barn tomorrow, but I'm going to do it now. It could be a long busy week." He headed for the door, trying hard to hold his own tears back. Phil got up from the table and brought his plate to the sink. He placed a hand gently on his mother's shoulder, and said, "Things won't be easy, but do you remember that book you read us? About Pandora? There's always still hope down in the bottom of the dark box." He headed towards the front door. "I'd better chase the cow into the barn. Looks to be cold tonight." He turned back at the door. "It could have been so much worse without the gift of those swords."

 

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         Tierna, Abeth, Marga, and Bek faced each other around the campfire, north, east, south, and west, like so many evenings before. Marga turned to Tierna and remarked, "You seem unusually pensive tonight." "Pensive. That's a good word for it," Tierna replied. "I'm frustrated. Every day's the same. We don't seem to accomplish anything. I don't know. I just wish I felt as if I'd done some good. Helped. Made a difference in this world somehow. That's all."

Reassociation by Ricki T Thues

 Reassociation

Evan is twenty-four, Gen Z. That’s what his driver’s license says. Some days he has to check.

 Mornings begin the same way: phone alarm, thumb swipe to turn it off, stare at the ceiling. The ceiling feels like a loading video screen—familiar but not informative. Evan waits for the room to assemble itself. Fan humming. Light through blinds. A car door slamming somewhere outside.

By the time he’s brushing his teeth, he’s already slipped into what he calls glass mode. Everything is visible. Nothing quite touches him. His reflection moves when he moves, but there’s a delay, like an unbuffered vid-stream. He watches himself spit, rinse, blink. The mirror shows nothing. It isn’t frightening anymore. It’s just how mornings go.

On the bus, everyone scrolls. Faces lit blue. Thumbs flicking. Someone laughs at a video. Evan doesn’t look up. The world feels thin—too sharp, too unreal, like it might crack if pressed.

Work happens in a co-working space with living plants and conversations that are less than real. Evan does his job well. He answers emails, adjusts layouts, writes copy that sounds confident and human. People tell him he has a good voice.

“Nice tone,” his manager says once.

Evan nods. Inside, nothing stirs. Not pride. Not relief. Just distance.

At lunch, he realizes he can’t remember if he ate breakfast. This happens a lot—not lost time exactly, just smudged time. He eats anyway. Hunger still cuts through the fog.

The dissociation crept in during college, somewhere between global crises and endless commentary explaining why everything was broken. Pandemic. Climate dread. Debt calculators. Screens full of outrage and aspiration. Caring too much about politicians who didn’t care. It started to hurt.

So his mind adapted. It stepped him back.

At first, glass mode had felt like relief. A dimmer switch. A way to keep functioning. Over time, though, distances grew. Conversations felt scripted. Achievements felt like they belonged to someone else. Life began to feel like content he was consuming rather than creating.

The hardest part wasn’t the numbness. It was the uncertainty.

Is this who I am? Or is this just what surviving feels like now?

At night, Evan presses a hand to his chest just to feel something solid. Sometimes he counts his breaths. Silence thickens the glass.

Coping didn’t arrive as a breakthrough. It started with irritation. One afternoon, Evan caught his reflection in a dark window. He looked back at himself. Almost there, like someone half there. The thought came quietly: I don’t want to keep disappearing.

So he started small.

He stopped wearing headphones on walks. Listened to shoes on pavement, birds arguing, traffic breathing. It was uncomfortable at first, like turning on bright lights. Then his body responded—shoulders lowering, breath slowing.

He searched words he’d He searched words he’d avoided: dissociation, depersonalization. Other people’s descriptions felt familiar in a way that startled him. He booked a therapy appointment and didn’t cancel. When he said, “Sometimes I don’t feel real,” the therapist didn’t flinch.

He learned grounding tricks that sounded dumb until they worked. Cold water. Pressing his feet into the floor. Naming what was real in the room.

Some days, glass mode still comes. Probably always will. But now he notices sooner. Now he knows how to tap on the mirror from the inside.

On a Friday evening, Evan sits on his fire escape and watches the sky shift colors. He feels the metal beneath him, the breeze against his skin. For a moment—not perfect, not permanent—he feels here.

And for now, that’s enough.

 

Stand Up by Mike Freeman

Stand Up

By Mike Freeman

Why do we call making an audience laugh "Stand-up comedy?" If we fail to make them laugh, should we call it "Stand-up bombing?" Why is body position even a consideration in the job title? I wash dishes standing up. Should we call that "Stand-up dishwashing?"

Stand-up comedy is intriguing. How many jobs require a large group of strangers to listen to every word you say? Job performance feedback is instantaneous. People drink alcohol while providing their performance review of your work. You will never see your reviewers again. You hopefully manage intoxicated reviewers with delicacy and humor. Failure can be brutal.

The year is 1981. I am a systems analyst/programmer working on a mainframe computer at a local shipyard. I am 28 years old, single, and have a one-bedroom apartment over the Ocean Beach pier. The view and my life are outstanding.

My friend, Mark, lives in the same building as I do. He loves his life too. We often get together to create mischief and general mayhem.

The La Jolla Comedy Store promotes an amateur night for aspiring stand-up comedians. It occurs every Sunday night. Each amateur comedian gets five minutes for a shot at glory. A few are brilliant. Many muddle through their once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Several go down in flames.

Mark and I explore this fascinating activity one Sunday evening. We discover the sign-up list is long. First-timers get thrown at the end. You work your way up the list as you continue coming back. It is best to go early when the audience is sober and energetic. Going at the evening's midnight end is often brutal. The audience tends to be drunk and fatigued. Any grace for first-time comedians quickly evaporates. The last comedian faces a potential audience of 200 hecklers.

A decision percolates in my brain for the next few days. I decide I will do stand-up comedy. I want Mark to do it with me. I ask him. There is no immediate response. I hand him a beer. He thinks quietly. He will join me.

We begin working on original material. It is challenging to write five minutes of comedy. We slowly develop an opening song. Then we go into a newscast. It starts with us announcing, "Time for News Briefs!" as we rip a pair of underwear from our pants. I read ridiculous newscast stories as Mark pantomimes the on-scene action. A few short skits quickly follow. We end our routine with a few fake Comedy Store announcements. With my best announcer voice, I say, "For the owner of a black BMW with license plate IM2DUMB, your lights are on, and there is a dead gorilla in your backseat."

Secret rehearsals commence Sunday morning. We hone our routine to five minutes. Time to make the next big decision. Do we share our bold experiment with anyone?

Success demands witnesses. Failure requires a deep, dark cover-up. No one can ever know. Who do we trust? Do any of our friends possess this level of discretion? Is failure containable?

We list our friends on a sheet of paper. We easily eliminate many. A few pass the selection criteria. One last question to answer before we send out invitations. Are we really gonna do this?

We face the terror.

"Let's bail! Time to go ride some waves!" almost erupts from my mouth. I see Mark battles the same type of thoughts. We drink a beer. We make our decision. It is go time!

We invite our friends and eat a quick, nervous dinner. Everybody arrives at the comedy store. Mark and I sign up—time for a drink!

The show starts. Things appear to be getting off to a good start. The audience is supportive. People and their acts reflect a growing level of professionalism. Then it happens.

Someone bombs. There is some audience sympathy. The next amateur comedian survives five minutes of non-laughter. Audience compassion is evaporating. Time quickly goes by. Amateur comedians rise and fall. There are still a few people ahead of us. I nervously rehearse everything in my mind. The master of ceremonies calls our names.

Mark and I make our way up to the stage and begin.

Everything becomes a blur. We finish our routine. The audience is applauding. We jump off the stage, joining our friends. We celebrate with a victory round of drinks. The moment is thrilling! Exhaustion meets elation. We go home.

Word of our success quickly spreads. I tell people at my work. No one can believe we actually had the courage or the success. Mark and I decide to do it again. We update our act with new material, leaving in the portions that we know work well. We set the date and announce it to our friends. Several join us. Success is with us again on the second performance. We create new material, blending it in with the old. The audience's reaction to our third stage appearance is the best!

Mark and I continue to learn about our new craft. The same material produces different reactions from various audiences. A portion of the Comedy Store's amateur night audience returns each Sunday. How to use voice modulation, pauses when speaking, and body language to get laughs. New material is critical.

Mark and I prepare for our fourth appearance. We develop a new routine that we are confident will bring the house down with laughter. It is about the Mediterranean fruit fly invasion, a serious threat to California's fruit and vegetable industry. I play a rollicking boogie-woogie song on the stage piano, while Mark wears a Mediterranean fruit fly mask, running around causing havoc within the audience. We weave this routine into our act for the night.

We expect several people we know to be in the audience that night. My sister, Karen, and her husband, Chuck, are among them. A senior manager from work, named Tom, will attend. Our friend, Angela. All of them have seen us before. A few people will see us for the first time.

Mark and I park his van on the street next to the Comedy Store. We drink a beer while rehearsing our new act. Our friend Gino approaches with his current girlfriend. I roll down the window to talk. He introduces us to his girlfriend. Her nickname is C. P., which stands for "Cutie Pie." It is their first time seeing us. They continue walking in. Mark and I work on our act.

Mark and I enter the comedy store and sign up for the show. We continue moving up the list. There is a sprinkling of our friends and family throughout the audience. We order a drink and sit back to enjoy the amateur comedian show. We pray that the one or two in front of us do not bomb horribly. It is a real challenge to bring an audience back from that.

The master of ceremonies calls our names. We confidently walk up to the stage and begin. Everything seems to go smoothly. It is time for the Mediterranean fruit fly portion of our act. I start on the piano as Mark places the fruit fly mask over his face and starts his interaction with the audience. I listen for uproarious laughter. I keep playing. I keep listening.

Nothing.

The resounding silence makes seconds feel like hours. I keep playing the piano, not sure what to do. We have no plan for this outcome. I keep playing. A few boo's emerge from our audience.

Mark walks up to the microphone, removing his mask, and says, "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life!" The audience laughs.

He runs off the stage and dashes out a side door. Playing the piano does not seem like a good idea. I try to adlib a joke or two, with no success. The master of ceremonies takes over the microphone and "gives me the hook."

I run off the stage. Then a new panic hit me. Mark is my ride home! I dash out the door to where the van is parked. Mark has the engine revved and starts to pull out. The passenger side window is wide open. I dive in as he roars away from the comedy store. I wrestle with the seat until I am properly seated using the seatbelt.

"I will never do this again!" Mark screams. He continues wailing.

I am quietly processing the recent events. I know now is not a good time to talk. We drive home.

The next morning, I go to work. My senior manager, Tom, calls me into his office. I really do not want to have this conversation. I sit down in front of his desk, eyes looking at the ground. Tom has a reputation for being a rugged manager.

"Tough night last night." He starts out saying.

I shift positions in his chair in reply.

"You know, Mike," he continues, "every person in the audience dreams about doing what you did last night. Have the courage to get up on a stage in front of a large audience and roll the dice. To take that big chance. Ninety-eight percent of them envy you for doing something they won't. They will always sit in the audience. Always remember how great it feels when you are successful in making people laugh. Feel good when you stand up with courage, to attempt that!"

I am speechless. My mood improves tremendously. I learn a critical life lesson. There is abundant life after failure. The sun rises the next day. My friends are still present. Karen and Chuck still love me. My career continues to flourish. It is better to try and fail than always regret never trying.

In a few weeks, Mark and I will return to the La Jolla Comedy Store and success. We perform our act about a dozen times. We bomb a few more times, always learning along the way. The experience is the best public speaking course ever!

Remember C.P. from the first time we bombed? We married a few years later and have three children and four grandchildren. How is that for failure? I get the girl anyway!

Maybe that's why they call it stand-up comedy.

You stand up—no matter how hard you fall.

Comics by Dennis Watson

                                                         Comics

                                                         Part 1    

    I love comics, and always have, since I was four years old and my father read the Sunday funnies out loud. Dick Tracy. Little Orphan Annie. The Katzenjammer Kids. Gasoline Alley. Mutt & Jeff. It was words and drawn pictures that took me to another place, a place populated by Donald Duck and his duck family, and Donald was featured in the newspaper as early 1936, and even then his hot-tempered, “furniture-breaking! personality” was in full view. What if there were no comics!?

  But there are! And the Donald of 1936 is not the Donald Duck I came to know and love. That Donald needed Carl Barks to illustrate Donald and give him speech. Barks wrote and illustrated 10 comic novels featuring Donald and his growing family: his rich uncle, Scrooge McDuck, his girl friend Daisy and, especially, his three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie. In the early years Donald and his nephews tormented each other—a bucket of water on the door jamb, sent to bed with no dinner—except what they snuck in right under their uncle’s nose.

  But Barks, and his new illustrator Anthony Tagliaferro, turned every thing around, and a more streamlined Donald became the intrepid captain for the many adventures financed by Uncle Scrooge and written by Carl Barks. And it must be noted that Barks did not write down to his young audience, and these 10 stories were written in a vocabulary unused by most 10-year olds, but still clear enough to be understood and enjoyed. And, I’m pretty sure, my love of words which exists to this day, began on those adventures.

   As an eighth grader I was already addicted to Mad Magazine, a satirical comic written and drawn by “the usual gang of idiots” as their masthead declared. I even had an Alfred E. Neumann shirt—What, me worry? (You really had to be there). Mad had lots of stuff going on in the borders and at the bottom of the page. One I remember was a 1/4” square drawing depicting an Aztec-like face and declaring “This is the mortal image of the great King Montezuma and anyone who sees it will die. Too bad if you looked.” That stuff just cracked me up. Most kids at my high school had no idea Mad Magazine even existed.

  After high school, a little more maturity beckoned and I became a regular reader of Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau’s decades-long comic strip which had the foresight to ridicule and vilify the current President, showing him for what he was early on. Here’s my favorite example, depicting the Prez inspecting the boudoir in his latest multimillion dollar yacht. The artisans had created beautiful ceiling art with cherubs and angel-like figures—quite nice. The statesman’s comment? “Put more hooters on those nymphs!” What a class act!

   This was obviously the more political kind of comic, but just as compelling for me.

   These days, in my 80s, Calvin & Hobbs have been freed from the constraints of the shrinking newspapers, and have been published—in dynamic color—in a large format book, some drawings occupying a full page. One depicts Calvin piloting a jet fighter and attacking a huge dinosaur, Calvin’s version of his kindergarten teacher chastising him for daydreaming. Calvin was uncontainable.

   Years later, when I had kids (four boys) we all still laughed at Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbs and Gary Larson’s genius bent humor. I still get the annual Larson cartoon calendar and his cartoons continue to make me—and my sons—laugh out loud. And don’t they say laughter is the best medicine?

   The next source of cartoons I discovered as an adult were in the New Yorker magazine and I subscribed to it mainly for the cartoons and the movie reviews. Today the New Yorker’s cartoons are not so funny for some reason, and I let my subscription lapse. Cartoons are supposed to be funny or meaningful, and sometimes in the NY they’re not anymore.

   A word about cartoons. Cartoons are a one-off, a single panel that works or not. A comic is a string of panels telling a story. Bliss, who appears in the Los Angeles Times and draws lots of adorable and remarkable dogs, also appears regularly in the New Yorker, and is a single panel cartoonist, while Gary Trudeau, a comic artist, draws several panels and tells a story.

  Today, Gary Larson’s cartoons are also available in large format, but it’s his wit that carries the day. Like this one: four military generals are sitting around a table of maps, and one of them leans casually back in his chair and says “On the other hand, what if we gave a war and everyone came?” Classic Larson. Want to know the real reason dinosaurs went extinct? Larson’s cartoon showing young dinos smoking cigarettes behind a large rock gives you Gary’s answer. And do you know what’s really nice about this? He has hundreds, maybe thousands more of them,  And I defy anyone reading three or four of them in a row not to laugh out loud at least once. You may even fall into the conundrum I have here: how can you write about cartoons without showing them? I will be depending on my good friend and an excellent editor, Rick Thues, to help me with this. And I suspect Rick may be a fan of comics and cartoons as well.)

  Until now, I’ve never really examined the relationship between the pictures and the words – I just enjoyed them. But I compare them to popular songs— combinations of words and music that just – work. In the 70s I enjoyed the more serious political cartoons of Paul Conrad in the LA Times, and of Pat Oliphant, a brilliant cartoonist, whose cartoons savage the powers to be in ways we couldn’t imagine without his art. [cartoon]

The 70s also had the scabrous underground comix, but more on them later, and you’ll have to hold your nose for most of them: they couldn’t be printed today.

   But with the gradual downsizing of all print, comics may be in danger like the ciggie- puffing dinos, and my hope is that despite any advantage of digital communication, there will always be paper comic books and cartoons by artists who earn their living and fame by their wit and artistry, and despite the desperate conditions of modern society will still crack me up. Here’s a cartoon caption I submitted to the New Yorker when it began inviting the readers to submit a cartoon, and they would then publish the winning one. The way the contest worked was the magazine published a cartoon on the back pages, but it was without a caption—you were to provide the words. The next issue would show three cartoons vying for the honor, and the next issue the winner. The cartoon I selected to submit showed two turkeys (it was around Thanksgiving) talking to each other, and one of them was  wearing a sexy black long-net stocking garter belt. My caption? “Do they make me look too delicious?” It didn’t make the back pages, but the New Yorker thoughtfully sent me a copy of what it would have looked like, and it was good enough that I could fib to my friends, and say it got published. (Having been to Catholic school of course I couldn’t do that.) [cartoon] By the way, if I could think of three more things to say between the two turkeys, I’d have a comic.

  Here’s what Carl Barks, the genius Donald Duck comic artist  (he would say illustrator) tells us in 1936.

   First off, let me assure the critics that what they see on the following pages is not juvenile kid stuff. Sure, our stories are enthusiastically enjoyed by children; that is proven by the many fan letters that reach my desk, but the main story forms are for grown-ups – men and women who read the stories first as children then re-read them again after they have reached sophisticated adulthood.  The critic could not have known that by the late 1930s the great revolutionary change in storytelling called “comic books” would come along. Nor that this would become a worldwide phenomenon.The 40s and 50s of the last century were the Golden Age of comics, and they told us in drawn pictures about the world we live in, and the people who live in it, and entertained millions. And almost always these cartoons told us much about the times we were living in, and the difficulties encountered thereof. The Doctor is in: 5 cents. (Peanuts 1955–Present—thank goodness for reprints).

   The principle of using pictures to tell the reader where the characters are at all times, what the characters are doing, and how the characters feel is there in a comic. In fact, the pictures are so closely integrated with written words that the pages become more related to the theater then to the printing press. [I found this a very intriguing comment.]

Barks continues. Reading a comic book, the critic would  realize, is to a great degree like holding a silent movie screen in one’s hands and, with a little practice, he would’ve found that the “POWS,” “BINGS,” and “KERASSHES” make even the silent screen come alive with excellent substitutes for sound.

   Comics seemed to have evolved from their original purpose, which was usually newspaper advertising and promotion for cough syrup and other home remedies popular in the 1930s. Smith’s Energy Tablets, for example (primary ingredient: cocaine), would buy the entire Sunday comics section from several newspapers and reprint 52 color pages of the most popular comics of the day, including a page or two of their ads selling their product, and if you noted with amazement that there were 52 pages of comics in 1930s, you can see why that might be the Golden Era. How many color pages of comics are in today’s LA times? Two.

  These 52 pages were filled with characters and stories that showed us what was going on in the world and in the minds of our amazing comic artists, and almost always there was humor there. What—me worry?

  Who might we meet in these early pages? Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for sure, because back in the day they were friends, and went on adventures together, and played pranks on each other other. In the 10 comic novels Carl Barks wrote and drew about Donald Duck and his family adventures, this ten-year was transported to whatever exotic island they visited, usually in search of treasure. Uncle Scrooge didn’t swim in 3 cubic acres of money because he stayed home. And I remember, a Mickey Mouse comic (he wasn’t owned by a corporation at the time.) where Mickey sees his girlfriend Minnie with another man—er, mouse. A jealous Mickey finds another lady mouse to stroll in front of Minnie, and he hurts her feelings. When he learns the boy mouse with Minnie was only her cousin, he is rightfully ashamed and apologizes. What is a 10 year-old boy to make of this?! A moral example in a comic, and it’s stuck with me all these years.

To be continued