Our Dinner with Elena

As mentioned in the note on my facebook page recapping Kelsey’s college road trip we met up with many friends during the trip to include my old friend from Los Angeles, Chris, and his daughter, Elena. The reason I am writing about it on my Disney Adventurer blog is because Elena, when not attending college, works at Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion accompanying guests in the “stretch room” at the beginning of the ride.

Elena Now

Elena Then (Demonstrating the Aiki-Kokyuho technique)

To fully discuss this and explain some of the accompanying photos I need to start back at the beginning of our relationship which spans about 22 years. I first met Chris when he joined our T’ai Chi group that practiced every Saturday morning in Warner Park; from there he also joined in the Aikido class I was taking at Pierce Community College in Woodland Hills, CA. When I eventually met his wife, Kathleen, she was pregnant with Elena.

(Chris and Kathleen)

(Chris and I on the set of Ulterior Motives with Aiki-jutsu Master Toshiro Obata who also starred in Black Rain with Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I and II, Rising Sun with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, and The Shadow with Alec Baldwin and Penelope Ann Miller. This photo was taken in 1990 when I was about oh,…about 125 pounds thinner, so thin apparently that I needed to wear both suspenders and a belt to keep my pants from falling down. Back in those days there was so much going on in my life that I needed really big glasses to take in all in. [And, as I think of it, this is the only time I think I ever saw Chris in a shirt with a collar.])

Soon after Elena was born and Patty and I were going out we became closer friends with Chris and Kathleen and, even though Patty and I were not yet married, we readily accepted the honorary titles of “aunt and uncle” to their Tricia and Elena.

Elena’s indoctrination to Disney came through her older sister, Tricia, who was the biggest Little Mermaid fan the world has ever seen. (Elena and Tricia)

From the outset Elena was what my grandparents would have called a pistol.

(Elena being entertaining)

She was both entertaining and innocently mischievous and Disney intertwined in both her entertaining and mischievous sides. For a while she was on a Peter Pan kick and one Sunday evening she led us through the house singing “Following the Leader” as she pulled the family’s boxer, Max, along with her. Mind you, however, that Elena did not know the words to “Following the Leader” so she just sang “Leader Leader Leader, Leader, Leader, Leader Leader Leader, Learder Leader Leader”. On another Sunday Kathleen regaled us with a story from the morning’s church service. It seems that during this period Elena was on a 101 Dalmatians kick and during a lull in the service a car horn could be heard which prompted Elena to exclaim “It’s that devil-woman, Cruella DeVille.”

Patty and I left L.A. for Chicago in 1991 when Elena was around two years of age. Fast forward 18 years and Elena is now a grown woman studying Musical Theatre at Columbia College in Chicago. This was a strange twist of fate to bring Chris, Elena, Patty, Kelsey, McKinlie and I back together on this blustery March Day. What made it a stranger twist of fate is that Elena works for Disney which is one of my passions. Because of that I just had to interrogate, eh…I mean…ask her a few questions about her job during our dinner at Pizzeria Due.

It seems that upon graduation from high school Elena could not decide what to do so Kathleen suggested that she venture to Florida and work at Walt Disney World while she figured it out. Elena began working the cash register at a food emporium in Disney-MGM Studios but eventually found her way to one of my favorite places, the Haunted Mansion. She works at the beginning of the attraction bringing guests into the “stretch room” (This is the place where narrator Paul Frees says “This room has no doors and no windows which leaves you with one chilling thought; to find a way out, of course there’s always my way!” And as any true Disney resort aficionado knows, the Haunted Mansion entry room ceiling at WDW stretches upward while the entry room floor at the Haunted Mansion in DLR elevators down.) Working the beginning of the attraction is probably a pretty good job as you have to establish a character and act your way through a short script which introduces and sets the tone for the experience. Outside of the Jungle Cruise the Haunted Mansion is the only attraction I can think of where the cast member has to do this (and the Jungle Cruise script is a little dated and corny anyway).

During the course of our dinner I quizzed Elena on various aspects of Disney and found that she knew her way around my trivia. She knew that Paul Frees was the voice of the Haunted Mansion’s “Ghost Host” and she also knew that X. Atencio wrote the script and the lyrics to “Grim Grinning Ghosts”. Xavier Atencio is one of the “Disney Legends” and also scripted the “Pirates of the Caribbean” attraction and wrote the lyrics to my favorite song, “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate’s Life for Me”. Atencio can also be heard in both attractions as the voice of the talking Skull and Crossbones before the first waterfall drop in Pirate of the Caribbean (“Ye come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, eh”) and in the Haunted Mansion at DLR he can be heard cautioning you to stay in your “doombuggies” if spirited spooks have caused the ride to stop momentarily.

Elena told us of one time at the Haunted Mansion when a couple of people came in and requested a private stretch room. After the doors closed and the narration began Elena took her place along the side of the room while the guests stood in the center looking upward. As the lights flashed off she moved in and when the lights came back on she was standing nose to nose with one of the guests, scaring him half to death. Elena enjoyed this as it really allowed her the opportunity to be “in character” and she was recognized by a leader who happened to witness the event.

Elena is still a casual cast member, working at WDW whenever she is off from school, and as such she is allowed to keep her costume so that she can be ready to work without having to go through a costume fitting. She told us that one of the toughest things to explain to people who do not work there is the sense of family and community amongst all of the cast members. Elena related that while there is competition for jobs and advancement each cast member roots for everyone else and is happy for the success of the other cast members. This clearly does not take place in the competitive atmospheres at most other Fortune 500 companies. All of this helped Elena decide what the she wanted to study and where she wanted to begin her career. As mentioned earlier she decided to study musical theatre and hopes to become a cast member in a musical show onboard one of the Disney Cruise ships.

It was very good to see Chris and Elena and I hope it is not another 18 years before we get together again. I enjoyed listening to Elena share her experiences and secrets of working at Walt Disney World. So now I will impart a secret of my own: my experiences around Tricia and Elena as their “uncle” gave me the desire to have girls of my own after Patty and I got married. It is another wonderful twist of fate that my dream of having two wonderful girls came true.

Kelsey and McKinlie

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