Part 1:
It's 6:30 AM and I'm waiting for the bus to take me to the Amtrak station downtown. I need to catch a 7:30 train to arrive in Portland by 11:00. I'm not actually performing until 10:00 tonight, but such is this business we call show. It's just now getting light out. I must confess it's been a while since I saw this side of 6 AM -- coming and not going, as it were. When I got up at 5:45 and walked downstairs to make coffee everything was peaceful, dark and quiet, Mr. Galt having retired for the evening just previously (his evenings are what some of us refer to as mornings.) The house felt uninhabited as I had my coffee and hastily prepared for my trip. I stuffed one change of clothing, a rain slicker, some toiletries and a script into my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. Then I picked up my guitar and stepped outside.
Now, standing at the bus stop, traffic is beginning to surge as the gainfully employed leave their homes, blinking in the harsh light of another working day. But on my walk here, I felt like I had the whole neighborhood to myself. This is what I enjoy most about early mornings. It's too bad I also enjoy sleeping .
I imagine the coolest job in the world might well be night maintenance crew at Disneyland. Walking around the Magic Kingdom all darkened and silent; the lifeless, glassy eyes of Dumbo and Pinocchio staring at you from every shadowy nook while you swab cotton candy and children’s vomit from beneath Mr. Toad's Wild Ride --- I'll bet it all looks a lot different at 4 in the morning. I tell myself that if one could somehow gaze, unblinking, into the darkened face of the Happiest Place on Earth some deep, primal secret of the American id would stand revealed.
Yes indeed, the "It's a Small World" ride, its animatronic Danish milkmaids and jolly Eskimos halted in mid-song, their smiles frozen into hideous leering rictuses that would be the envy of any Miss America contestant, takes on a very different cast when viewed by the light of a single 40 watt bulb. Anybody who has spent any time at all backstage can tell you that knowing how the magic trick is done changes everything. But knowing where the rabbit is hidden must pale in comparison to seeing the gears and wires that moved the face of a treasured childhood memory.
I wonder if they make the maintenance crew wear the little mouse ears?