August, 1983

I awoke one August morning in the odd little bed in the back of my grandparents' camper.  Outside the window, the campsite I had fallen asleep in had vanished, replaced by a long line of still and silent cars, gleaming in the early-morning Florida sun.  I craned my head and could see, just up ahead, the parking-lot gate topped with the words EPCOT CENTER in that rounded font that looked so futuristic in 1983.

I didn't want to be here.  I was nine, and as I lived nearly a thousand miles north of central Florida most of the year and was entirely dependent on my parents' schedules, desires and budget to get anywhere close to Disney World, if I was going to go, I wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom, dammit.  I remembered seeing odd posters around the MK last time I had been there, proclaiming that "The 21st Century Begins October 1, 1982," and the posters were devoid of any sign of Mickey and his pals.  I shrugged and got in line to ride Peter Pan's Flight, not giving this weird little park with its weird little posters any further thought.

When EPCOT Center finally opened, I spent the subsequent summer with my dad's parents, and my grandfather declared that we would be visiting it.  (My Grandpa was a bit of a Fun Dictator.  You always did crazy-fun stuff with him, but it was always his idea and he brooked no disagreements or alternate plans.  Hell, he was paying, so I guess it was his prerogative.)  I was disappointed that we wouldn't be riding the Jungle Cruise for the sixth or seventh time, but boarded the camper for the trip south to Orlando.

Now, seeing the parking gate, my interest was piqued.

My interest blossomed into full-blown awe when I saw the geosphere of Spaceship Earth for the first time.  It was HUGE, and it was different (I was too young at the time to be aware of the 1967 World's Fair).  We bought tickets, walked past the entry fountain, the music swelling in our ears, and I stood beneath the sphere, seeing the triangular detailing (how big the triangles were!) up close...and wait, what is this...there was a RIDE in this thing?  We could go IN IT?  I assumed it was just a statue!  Not only was it a functional building...it was a RIDE.

Every thing we went on that day blew my little elementary-age mind.  I had gently resisted The Land-- farming is boring, Grandpa!-- until I realized that I had never seen farming like this.  Lettuce growing on a centrifuge?  Plants growing in sand?  The cool, ascending outdoor spiral of World of Motion leading you to a gently-humorous story, ending in those awesome video tunnels that sent you first speeding through a Scandinavian (?) forest, then swirling into a fiery black hole.  The movie theater of Universe of Energy, which...hang on, the theater seats are moving!  Into a land of dinosaurs!  The joy of Figment and Dreamfinder, inspiring you before sending you off to play in the Image Works, conducting entire symphonies with light sensors, then trying to catch the fountains outside as they leaped overhead.

Man.  FORGET you, Magic Kingdom!

It was a great and glorious day that I will never forget.  It opened my eyes to possibilities and ideas that I didn't know about or think about.  It made me want to learn and do more.  It absolutely, slam-dunk succeeded in its stated mission to "entertain, inform and inspire," with heavy emphasis on the 'inspire' part.  As we drove away at the end of the day, I stared out the back window at Spaceship Earth, watching it grow smaller and smaller and finally vanish from sight, my heart sad to see it disappear.

I will never get the criticism of early EPCOT that it was boring, or too dull for kids.  It was anything but that for me.  Thirty years later, I am still inspired by that experience of encountering it for the first time.