Silly Member Stories

How to steal a character from a kid....or I can't believe I did this!
by John J. Buxbaum

The highlight of my virst visit to Walt Disney World was meeting the characters and getting autographs. Yes, I am a balding 33 year old MAN saying this. When we took my first trip in August 1999 my wife warned me that we might not see as many characters as I wanted. To me that was one of the main points of going. I had grown up watching 'The Wonderful World of Disney' every Sunday night, right after Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Jim Perkins. My father, upon hearing that we were going, said "You were born to go to Disney". Despite this fact I never managed to go until I was 31.

Well, like I said, I was looking forward to meeting all the characters and despite my wife's previous experience we saw over 40 different ones in our 9 magical days. The most amazing point came on our last day there. We were in the Magic Kingdom just opposite the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. I was wearing a Jungle Book t-shirt (my favorite movie) and we ran in to both Baloo and King Louie. Baloo saw me and started going bonkers, jumping up and down and pointed at me and my shirt. He was very excited, so excited infact that he ran over to King Louie. King Louie was occupied with a four or five year old kid at the time. Despite this fact, Baloo dragged King Louie over to me, showed him my shirt and insisted that the three of us have a picture taken together. :) This was just the perfect cap to our time there. Baloo, King Louie and I together, captured on film and in my memory forever. Of course I hope that little kid got over this old guy taking King Louie away from him....

Smile!