The Boy in the Microscope

Donna Drysdale as told to Chelsey Drysdale

In summer 1968, when we were almost nineteen, we had our first kiss on the Adventure Thru Inner Space ride at Disneyland. The ride purported to shrink people to smaller than an atom inside a giant artificial microscope, but as I sat next to the cutest boy I’d ever seen in real life, my buzzing atoms felt more expansive than ever. Earlier that day, the boy—who most likely wore Levi’s Button Fly jeans, a button-up, short-sleeved shirt with pin stripes, white socks, and black shoes—was nervous as we boarded the parking lot tram. This was my first date with him. This was his first date ever.

Inside the microscope, the outside world vanished. I doubt the tall, lanky, blue-eyed boy with short, wavy brown hair and I noticed the booming voiceover of the “scientist” who said, “I’m the first person to make this fabulous journey!” We probably didn’t notice the oversized snowflakes swirling around us, growing as we continued to “shrink.” When our lips touched, I wasn’t thinking about how earlier that week, the boy’s sister-in-law said, “We should all go to Disneyland this Saturday!” to which the boy replied, “Yeah! I get paid on Friday.” He, his brother, the unwitting matchmaker, and I were hanging around the Phillips 66 full-service gas station where the boy worked for his dad in the oppressive San Bernardino County heat. I’d only met him about two weeks prior. Our connection was instantaneous, but at the gas station I knew I’d break up with my high school boyfriend of three-and-a-half years inside the week because Disneyland was an unspoken “date.” Like many relationships with star athletes that begin when a girl is fifteen, this one had reached its expiration.

Saturday, the boy and I, now unattached, happened upon a classic rock band and a dance floor while walking through Fantasyland—me most likely sporting Keds, pedal pushers, and a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. As soon as I heard the music, I said, “Let’s dance!” He squeezed my hand so tight, I thought my bones might snap. “I don’t dance,” he said.

I love dancing. In high school, my biggest disappointment was not making the song-leading team, settling instead for pep commissioner. It was the perfect teenage activity for a chatty social butterfly on the edge of the popular crowd. Two-point-two miles away, my future introverted Disneyland date hid in the back row of the classroom, quiet, praying the teacher wouldn’t call on him.

The boy’s fear of dancing didn’t stop me from falling for him as he eagerly took me on the Matterhorn Bobsleds and the Rocket Jets above a make-believe NASA launch pad, despite my trepidation for fast-moving rides. We spun round and round in the sky, our young love burgeoning only weeks after I moved into his house, where I unpacked and fell in love with the boy’s shiny red Austin-Healey before meeting him in his mom’s kitchen; she’d uncharacteristically rented a stranger a room in their historic home.

Inside the Disneyland microscope, as the boy and I canoodled, and our hearts melted with the snowflakes, the voiceover asked, “Have I reached the universe of the molecule?” At that moment, our own molecules combined. He was the E ticket ride I hadn’t expected—totally worth the $7.30 price of admission. That day I added another love to my repertoire, alongside Disneyland and my mom.

Disneyland opened eleven days before my sixth birthday, where my precious mom and I walked down Main Street, U.S.A. in wonder toward the King Arthur Carrousel. I couldn’t have known one day, decades after my mom’s premature death, I’d open a Westways magazine and see a surprising full-page 1955 aerial black-and-white photo of my mom holding my tiny hand as we took our first steps into the happiest place on Earth. I couldn’t have known that intoxicating kiss inside the microscope with the boy in 1968 would be one of many; that, after his wavy short hair had grown longer and curlier, my bangs had disappeared, and I’d traded in pedal pushers for bell-bottoms in the early 1970s, we’d ride the Skyway buckets from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland with a couple who’d offer us a joint. I couldn’t have known my future husband and I would take our blond, pigtailed oldest daughter there every year for her birthday. I couldn’t have known my youngest daughter would take my grandson to Disneyland too, or that both daughters would not only be mine but also would belong to the boy in the microscope.

In 1978 we bought a house twenty-seven miles from Disneyland after nine years of marriage. The cutest boy I’ve ever known is still my husband, and we still live in that house. We talk about renewing our long-expired annual Disneyland passes but are deterred by the prices and crowds that didn’t exist when we met. No matter. We have decades of memories watching the elevator stretch in the musty Haunted Mansion; thrills inside Space Mountain, getting whipped around in the dark; giggling over the wiggly hippo ears on the Jungle Cruise; and singing, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!” in the Caribbean.

These days we are content to watch Netflix, me on the couch, the boy lying on the floor, reaching up to grab my feet under a blanket, a reminder I’m still here. Who needs a light parade or fireworks over a castle when you still have your best friend you first kissed at Disneyland fifty-five years ago—the boy who continues to take you on all the best rides of your life? Now we are less Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and more cozy train ride around the park’s perimeter, but if we were to pass a rockin’ band, this time I’d be able to lure him onto the dance floor. I might even let him lead.

Donna Drysdale is a lifelong Southern California resident and a retired photographer, court reporter, and event planner. Her latest love is her eleven-year-old grandson, who divides his time between golf and velodrome track cycling. Chelsey Drysdale of Drysdale Editorial is her oldest daughter.