IN MEMORY OF . . .

Most of my blogs i try to see the lighter side of Disney life. But as we approach Easter eve and my thoughts tend to drift toward life, death and the 'here after', i want to take a moment and make sure some of my friends who have passed on get remembered. In the past blogs, I have never use a person's real name for security and privacy reasons. But this one time i want to wave that.

Joel, entertainment technician, football player. I worked with Joel on the opening crew for Fantasmic!. He was a big guy with and even bigger heart. One christmas eve, he wanted to bring the tradition of reading the Christmas story to the Fantasmic! cast and asked if my Bible was in my car. That night he had a mini-church service in the green room. To see him you'd think he could crush anything. To talk with him you knew he was a big teddy bear.

He played on an arena football league for several years, but never achieved his dream of making it big. He had a part time job as a bouncer at a bar and it was assumed someone got ticked off that night. After hours Joel was sitting in his car and was shot several times in the chest. At last report, they still had no idea who did it.

Aeyrk was a dancer for Beauty and the Beast (B&B)and Pleasure Island. He was one of those people that every body knew. My fondest memory of Aeyrk was between shows when he was bored. He'd come into wardrobe, sit on the clothes dryer and keep us all amused with stories. One day particular, we got sex tips from a gay guy. . . it was very educational and kind of odd.

One afternoon, while riding his motorcycle, he was involved in a head on collision with a car. His was the first African-American funeral I had ever been to and it was the biggest emotional roller coaster I have ever been on. We laughed. We cried. We laughed some more. Disney management cancelled the morning's shows at B&B and any where else he had worked so people could go to the funeral. They also provided a bus to transport anyone who wanted to attend. For me it was very impressive that an individual was so well loved and respected by managment that they shut down several shows that day in his honor.

One last thing about Aeryk, when a friend of mine and I left the funeral, there was a car alarm going off. We were rather upset that some one would 'just allow thier alarm to keep going off'. Then we realized . . . it was her truck. She didn't even know she had a car alarm and had no idea how to turn it off. After fiddling with some wires and with some help from several of funeral attendees, we were able to turn the thing off. We decided that it had to have been Aeryk saying good bye to everyone in his own special way.

Joe, stage manager, was one of the sweetest, nicest guys you could ever meet. He worked at Epic for a long time and never once let the boy's shannigans get the better of him. Which is saying alot for that show. In fact, one day the boys had been watching too much wrestling on TV and started trying out wrestling moves on any one who walked through the door. Joe came in to announce 'Places' for the next show. One of the guys tried a few moves on him and he played along.

Joe had brain cancer. He was gone for a very long time while he had chemo, surgery and other treatments. I'll never for get when i saw him again for the first time. I said, "It is nice to see you back here again." His said, "It's nice to been seen." That really stuck with me, because that was his way of saying he was just happy to be alive. Sadly, Joe lost his battle with cancer a short time later.

Tom, Character Coordinator, was one of the most dedicated cast members I have ever seen. He lived, slept and breathed the Star Wars event at the studios every year. In fact, when he was sooo sick during his last Star Wars event that he could barely stand, we told him he should go home and take care of him self. He was almost in tears when he said, "If I do, they'll take the event away from me." Tom had terminal cancer and while in his thirties, in the middle of his beloved special event, he passed away. One of my most profound memories of his passing, was the fact that his fellow cast members rallied around him morning, noon and night. They practically moved into the hospital waiting room. They also put on a benefit show to help raise money for his mounting medical bills.

Donnie was one of the few managers who everyone respected. Things weren't good between hourlies and managers in costuming for years (but that is a whole other blog). Most managers, if they asked us to extent to cover a shift, we'd say, "nope, gotta go." If Donnie asked, we usually stayed because we could never tell Donnie no. Why ? He worked side beside with us. He backed us up and he respected his cast. One friday he left for the day with huge plans for his weekend. I was called Sunday and told that he had died from a heart attack. That week, we were all wrecks.

I want to end this blog on a high note and tell you one of Donnie's stories. He was in Bogota, Columbia with a bunch of costumes for a Latin America promotional tour. He realized too late that his driver's license had expired and the rental car company refused to rent him a car. After catching a cab to the his hotel, he decided it was not a good place to walk on the streets. He had no idea when he was supposed to meet his contact person, he was getting hungry and spoke no spanish. He tried to ask a housekeeper if the hotel had room service. She looked horrfied at him and ran away. Not knowing what he had said, the next day he told his contact person about the incident. He was told that instead of asking for room service. . . as in food, what he had asked for was to be serviced in the room . . . as in sex. Poor Donnie.

God Bless and Happy Easter