Yankees World Series Parade - 1996

Below is my journal entry from the day I spent photographing the New York Yankees parade, on October 29, 1996 in lower Manhattan, New York City. The Yankees won the World Series again in 1998, and the whole city celebrated. New York takes its sports very seriously. I got up at four in the morning to get a good spot to photograph the parade, and shot about six rolls of film. I also photographed the 1998 parade as well. This journal entry is from the 1996 parade. Sit back and enjoy this historic day in New York, if you're interested.

If you would like to see a huge gallery of images from both parades, click HERE.

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Four AM.

Ossining was sound asleep in the chilled, October morning, with the sun having hours yet to make its appearance. The traffic light hanging limply at the intersection blinked yellow mutely, with no cars to heed its signal. The corners where buildings met sidewalks were cluttered with the washed up tides of dead, brittle leaves, scuttling frantically at the insistence of the bitter wind.

The train station at the bottom of the hill in Ossining was nearly deserted save for a woman who tried to hand me religious pamphlets. When I turned her down she returned to her car and sat in the dark, parked by the stairs that led down to the train platform, watching me.

I didn't care.

I squatted by a bale of newspapers and undid one bale, taking a New York Times and leaving sixty cents. I waited for the 5:05 train in the harsh brightness of the train shelter, sitting on the cold cement. I was not dressed for cold weather; I was wearing my faded jeans, safari jacket and safari shirt underneath. These were my "photo shoot" clothes, much like Harriet and her spy clothes from the book Harriet the Spy. Beside me sat my camera bag that carried all my gear.

A sullen, orange zone  was just showing on the horizon behind the New York skyline as the Metro North train rumbled between the rundown buildings lining 125th St, then through the blackness underneath the New York city streets, until the train came to a stop at the platform at Grand Central terminal. I followed the groggy sea of bodies up the concrete platform that smelled of oil, rubber and roasted nuts, into the main concourse of Grand Central, grabbing a large coffee and headed for the subway.

It was filled with people going to work or to the parade.

City hall dominated a tiny jetty of grass and several trees which was a City Hall Park, and divided Broadway into a Y, with Broadway continuing north, and Park Row winding around and meeting the busy Bowery, which headed north as well. It was here where One Police Plaza was located. Park Row was jammed with television trucks and vans, tended by crews coiling cable, making connections and standing around nursing cups of coffee. The sun would not make its appearance above the tall buildings in lower Manhattan for several hours yet; it was just 6:15 and in the morning shadows, a chill remained. Blue police sawhorse barricades fenced off the park, and empty faced police officers stood around lamely, with no traffic or crowds to direct yet.

I cut onto Broadway, which was entirely lined with barricades. People shuffled up and down the sidewalks, and police cars were cruising back and forth importantly, red lights flashing. People were already camped out along the barricades in clumps, sitting on blankets and bundled up against the cold. At the doorways to the tall office buildings that lined Broadway where large bags of shredded paper, ready to be lugged up to the offices and tossed out the windows. Large paper recycling and paper shredding trucks were making stops, depositing more paper, jockeying for space with taxicabs and delivery trucks. Amid these preparations were people in suits and ties on their way to work.

What lower Broadway looked like at 7 am...

...and at what it looked like at 11 am

A tall, lanky looking kid with no shirt on and a Yankee baseball hat was shouting at people, "YEAH YANKEES! NUMBER ONE!" People strolling up and down the street wore Yankee T-shirts, hats, and some were carrying carefully rolled up banners. I passed two small tents that sat beside the barricades, where diehard fans had obviously spent the night. People gathered on blankets were reading comic books or newspapers, trying to keep warm. Police officers and sanitation workers moved briskly up and down the street, tending to their tasks while the street and sidewalk were still sparsely populated.

The huge, iron bull by the Merrill Lynch building was cordoned off by blue barricades, frozen in mid-charge, as if the barricades were containing him. Further up Broadway was Battery Park, at the tip of lower Manhattan. It was congested with buses and trucks covered with the Yankees logo and the title World Champions. A huge, inflatable baseball glove sat on a float. A row of press people with TV cameras and broadcast equipment are contained in one area. Police, security guards and parade officials milled around aimlessly. I decided that the plaza at Cortland and Broadway would offer the best view, so I headed back.

I stopped at the two tents on the sidewalk. You just don't see tents sitting on a sidewalk. Well, maybe in New York you do, but I'm not a native New Yorker, so I wouldn't know these things. Sitting between the tents was a middle-aged lady in a beach chair wearing gloves and a winter coat. "Did you spend a whole night  out here?" I asked.

"No, but my son did." she answered. "He went to try to get an autograph from one of the players, I'm holding his spot for him."

"I'm surprised the police let him pitch a tent here all night."

"Well, he knows the right people, I guess."

"Did you stay out here also?"

"Oh, no, I slept in the car. I parked it in a parking lot not too far from here, where they have a security guard."

I laughed. "I've never spent the night in a car before. Did you get a lot of sleep?"

She shrugged. "I got about three hours of sleep."

"You must be diehard fans," I commented, shaking my head.

"My son is. He's thirty-two years old, and he loves the Yankees."

I chatted with her a bit more before continuing on, running into the screaming, shirtless fan who was either hungover, dazed from lack of sleep, or both. "I've been up since last night dude." he blurted with heavy lidded eyes. "Go Yankees!" he shouted.

At just after 7 AM, the streets were not crowded yet, although tour buses were as abundant as police vehicles. The cold was making my teeth chatter. I decided to stake out my chosen spot from the McDonald's across the street, where I could keep my eye on it. Inside, a mother was sitting at one table at the front window while her son was excitedly coming and going. Two elegant black women sat at another table watching the activity before heading to work. I set my gear down on the window ledge and began nursing my coffee. Sitting nearby was a fussy looking woman named Susan Sokol. She had very short, grayish silver hair that clung tightly to her head, and a gaunt face that spoke of a life of constant disapproval. She was thin and had on a long, business trenchcoat. Her thin, small hands busily worked at the croissant and coffee before her.

"It's an imposition," she was saying. "They should have done this on the weekend when people didn't have to go to work. I like baseball, but it's not fair for those of us who have to work to put up with all this. I had to park over four blocks away, and it took me over two hours to get to work this morning."

I asked her where she worked, and she told me the World Trade Center, mentioning that she had been there the day of the explosion [the first World Trade Center attack]. I asked her what it was like. She shook her head. "It's undescribable. It was like a war zone, with all these trucks, the media and fire trucks. I'll never forget it as long as I live."

A thin black woman outside came by and held up a counterfeit Yankee T-shirt. The mother sitting inside asked in a loud voice how much. The vendor opened  her hand twice; ten dollars. "How many do you have?" The woman asked loudly. The vendor flashed her open palm several times, and after a moment's consideration, the mother signed that she would buy two for eight. The vendor nodded and the mother got up to go get them. The hand signals reminded me of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where traders communicated by hand signals.

"Well I'm not a native New Yorker or anything," I said to Susan Sokol, "but the Yankees are such an integral part of New York City's identity that when they win the World Series the city wants to celebrate."

"Some of us still have to get to work." she insisted. "Businesses don't stop just because the Yankees win the World Series. I have a job to get to; I shouldn't have to deal with this." She finished her breakfast and we exchanged goodbyes.

Outside, the street was becoming more crowded, so I headed back outside, to keep an eye on my spot. It was almost eight; the parade would not begin until eleven-thirty. People were handing out free copies of the Daily News and selling team posters for fifty cents. A vendor with a knapsack came by hawking baseball bat pens for five bucks a pop. At the corner of Cortland, an Eyewitness News 7  TV truck was parked, with two guys setting up railing on the roof. A sixty foot high antenna assembly was topped by a TV camera and radar dish-type component. A police stake-body cargo truck cruised by carrying police golf carts. A small three wheeled police scooter patrolled the barricades, stopping to tell people at the curb not to stick their feet out because of the traffic. 

The marble platform in front of a tall office building would put me about sixteen feet above the street, giving me a perfect spot to photograph the parade. Building security guards stood atop of it, preventing anyone from climbing on top. By the time the parade began, however, there would be so many people, they would not be able to tell anyone what to do. So for now I let my camera bag occupy the spot for me.

As I stood watching the proceedings, a middle-aged man wearing a Yankees jacket stood beside me. He was shorter than me, with square rimmed glasses, and deep lines of age spreading from his nose. His cheeks had begun to sag, and he had a barely noticeable trace of hair on his upper lip. He had the welcoming, avuncular look of a favorite uncle or grandfather.

"I tried to convince my son to let his daughter come with me today," he said in a raspy, understated voice. He shook his head. "He wouldn't let her. This kind of thing doesn't happen every year, I told him, but he wouldn't listen. 'She's got school', he says. Oh well. What c'n you do, ya know?"

I nodded. The school chancellor had the unenviable job of insisting that the schools stay open during the parade. Still, one in three pupils would be absent today, as it would later turn out.

The man's name was Joseph Rocco (left); I took his picture and he insisted on giving me five bucks to send him enlargement. We chatted as we waited, and on the other side of me was a calm looking guy in his mid-30s, with a grayish beard who had turned out to catch the parade. He was talking to people on his cell phone. In the windows above, people were beginning to appear, some hanging out homemade banners. Joseph handed me his binoculars, pointing out the good looking women. There were plenty to look at.

There was a festive joy in the air. Even taxicabs were stopping between the intersections to let pedestrians cross, something unheard of in New York City. We still had over two and a half hours before the parade began. 

Slowly the sidewalks began to get more crowded. From one person deep at the barricades, it became two and three people deep. The space between where I stood and the crowds at the barricades shrank until people were squeezing by between us. People were beginning to get jostled. "We're New Yorkers," the man with the beard said. "We don't care. We don't say excuse me."

I grinned. "Right. It's more like 'get the fuck out of the way'." 

He nodded mildly. "That's it. That's what New Yorkers are like. We don't care."

People were tossing rolls of toilet paper up into the air, across the street, and booing when it didn't leave a floating trailer white gauze. Confetti and shredded paper were already beginning to float down from the windows above like a hesitant blizzard. The sidewalk was a mess of newspaper and stationery. Toilet paper had collected at the street signs and lampposts and fluttered peacefully in the breeze. A  nearly solid line of police officers kept the sea of people behind the barricades. As the tour buses and delivery trucks drove through, the crowd cheered and roared boisterously. The security guards for the building who stood on the marble platforms to keep people off had given up, and now it was covered with people, myself included. I helped Joseph climb up beside me so he could get a good view.

Below me, a black man was escorting his son through the crowds, saying, "Don't look at me. It's not my fault if you and your mother fell asleep when they won."

People in the offices were leaning out of the windows and sitting on the ledges, some having made their own banners. One was apparently not spelled correctly, because a portion of the crowd began chanting, "You can't spell!" thrusting accusatory fingers into the air.

"What's going on?" Joseph asked me.

I shrugged. "One of those signs has a typo, I guess." I watched as the woman on the ledge beside the sign leaned forward, inspecting the sign, and after a few minutes she pulled it into the building, eliciting a raucous cheer from the crowd.

The energy and noise continued building. The crowd alternated between singing Take Me Out To the Ball Game, to cheering Way To Go Yankees. Looking up at the narrow river of sky between the tall buildings, I felt like I was in a snow globe. Bits of paper and streams of gauzy toilet paper floated and swirled, in no hurry to reach the ground. 

People covered every horizontal surface, including the huge girder lining the base of the building behind me, over ten feet above the steps that led to the entrances underneath. Their legs dangled over the edge like the old pictures of the construction workers eating lunch on a girder high above the city. I wondered how they got up there. A police officer on a horse trotted up the street, producing more cheers from the masses. The New York Times would write the following day, "... Lower Manhattan groaned under the weight of a crowd that Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani put at 3.5 million, an estimate probably born more out of enthusiasm than precise methodology".

Finally the parade became visible, inching down Broadway beginning with a police car with its lights blinking.

"Is that it?" The grey bearded man asked me. He stood on the sidewalk below me; I was on the marble platform sixteen feet above the ground. I told him that looked like it. Greybeard handed at me his camcorder and I panned the street and buildings, getting some good footage for him. 

I had both cameras around my neck and my disposable panoramic camera and a cargo pocket of my safari jacket. I was shooting both color and black-and-white. Down the street came the huge glove and baseball, moving slowly through the river of bodies. A near blizzard of paper, stationery and toilet paper filled the air. The roar of the people was near deafening, a surging, physical force. People on the marble Island around me jockeyed for space, while below, parents guide their kids through the throngs, fruitlessly looking for good views. 

The next float contained the Rockettes, the famous chorus girls dressed in green Christmas elf outfits, eliciting some wolf whistles that made it above the roar. As the baseball players themselves came through on their floats, with their names on the side, they seemed overwhelmed by the turnout and the energy. One spectator had a huge python, and hoisted it about his head as the floats passed. The players and wives gaped and pointed at the snake, mouthing, "Oh my God". 

Next came a string of classic convertibles occupied by city officials, including the ethically challenged State Sen. Al D'Amato, Joe DiMaggio, and the governor. One of the convertibles was a city owned 1952 Chrysler phaeton, discovered in the corner of a sanitation department garage covered in soot, and now used for official functions. Worth more than $350,000, only five were built and only three now exist. 

My fingers were beginning to tingle as the feeling in them began making an exit, but I ignored the loss of feeling, concentrating on shooting the floats as they moved through the river of bodies. In between the floats were press photographers and TV camera crews who occasionally panned their cameras at the crowds, which screamed and jumped and flailed their arms in spasms of enthusiasm. The TV news van at the corner had the anchorman standing on the roof in front of the camera, broadcasting the parade live for the benefit of those who couldn't attend. A double-decker sightseeing bus and antique fire truck slowly rolled by, signaling the end of the parade.

At this point the crowd began to break up and disperse, eddying in different directions. Some followed the parade to City Hall, others lingered to scoop up the piles of paper that lay everywhere, throwing them into the air.

Joseph climbed down from the marble pedestal. "You coming down?"

"No, I'm going to stay up here a bit longer, and shoot some more pictures."

"Hey, it was nice to meetchya." Joseph said, extending a vein covered hand. I squatted and shook it firmly.

"It was nice to meet you too Joseph." I answered. People swarmed around us and shouts and cheers filled the air. I meant it; I had enjoyed watching the parade with him. "When I get the pictures processed I'll send you a nice one. You've got my word on that." Joseph wandered away, merging with the bodies, and after a few more minutes of pictures I jumped down as well, slinging my camera bag over my shoulder and merging with the sea of bodies.

The street was awash in paper; the asphalt was completely covered. People were running around throwing paper at each other. Others were posing in the drifts for pictures taken by their companions. The air was filled with post-parade glee. People were chasing each other, dancing and engaging guerrilla paper fights. With ticker tape being obsolete and nonexistent now, everything from express delivery envelopes to entire boxes of unshredded, confidential records had been hurled out the windows. In fact, The New York Times would report that checks issued by the city Housing Authority and records of unemployment checks from the Department of Social Services have been tossed out the windows.

The police immediately closed down Broadway starting at Cortland, and crowds of people massed at the barricades like blood clotting at a cut. I found myself jostled and squeezed as I tried to exit Broadway. Since the police were trying to minimize the number of people making it to City Hall, I squeezed through the crowds, ducking down the darkened canyon of Cortland toward Nassau Street.

The tall buildings rose high on all sides, keeping out the sun high above, plunging the street into perpetual shadows. Paper was everywhere; I shuffled through it like autumn leaves. I ended up at the South St., Seaport which was touristy as hell, but at least I would be able to grab some chow while I waited for the crowds to diminish. By now, a small number of police officers were returning to their cruisers to find them smashed up, having served as a platform for parade spectators who decided that when the Yankees win the World Series, anything goes. Jack Acree, a 33-year-old food consultant, parked at Tribeca towers, at what he had assumed was a safe distance from the parade route. When he returned to his car, he found it had been crushed and the windshield shattered. Not by vandals, but by the weight of spectators we climbed on top of it to watch the festivities. His Honda Accord  was totaled. Amazingly enough, he was not even angry at the people who would smashed his car. "This is New York City, " he explained to the New York Times. 

The sun was soothing and warm as I listened to the ceremony for the Yankees taking place at City Hall Park on the TV above the bar. The police commissioner was presenting Wade Boggs with a certificate making him an honorary policeman, and also a police helmet. Boggs had ridden around Yankee Stadium on a police horse after the final out that had decided the game. People had run out onto the field, and the Yankees themselves had formed a huge pig pile, with one player jumping on top and rolling off the other side. 

"I'm so proud to be a Yankee." Boggs said, stepping up to the microphone, holding the certificate. "But most of all, I'm also so proud of you fans. You talk about the greatest spectacle in the history of sports. This ticker tape parade was the greatest sports spectacle in history."

I didn't stick around to watch the rest of the ceremony. I had more pictures to take.

Star Wars Weekends Special Event

May 20th, 2011

If you are looking for the post "Found Slides, a Life Remembered", click on the title below

Part 1 - Before Dawn
 

image credit:roadsidescholar.com

The world can seem very big and scary at 2:30 in the morning when you're one of the few cars on the road.

The travel mug of coffee wasn't doing much to mitigate the roughly two hours of sleep I had managed to get the night before. With the exception of another car on Interstate 4, it felt like I was the only person left in the world.

I was halfway to Orlando, to join the 501st Legion in a special event taking place at Disney's Hollywood Studios. We would be doing some kind of activity in the park to help Disney commemorate the grand re-opening of Star Tours, the Star Wars-themed ride, and it was very hush hush; no one knew exactly what we would be doing once in the park and in costume.

Call time back stage was 4 AM.

I pulled into the cast parking lot at 3:30; there were already a large number of members milling around in the dark beside the tall building which defined the back lot, drinking Gatorade or coffee, standing by their armor bins. Two huge satellite trucks were idling beside the staging area in the parking lot, and a couple of small tents were set up. The event was going to be televised on TV and on the Internet. After unloading and parking, I mingled with other people in the Legion, some of whom I hadn't seen all year.

It was the first day of Star Wars Weekends 2011.

At 4 AM, Disney security brought the bomb sniffing dogs through the area to inspect our gear, as is the routine, and after signing in, receiving our back stage credentials, and another security check, we were allowed past the gates to the back stage area.

Members dragged their big, rolling bins through the darkened back lot, between tall buildings where the park vehicles and floats were stored, and smaller admin buildings, being guided by Disney staff members to the cast entrance of the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular arena. We filed past the enormous vehicle that moved part of the stage back and forth, with its four foot tall tires, wires, pipes and gauges that the audience doesn't see. The Nazi plane was tucked away in the corner, the stunt truck sat off to the side, ready for another day's series of shows. The huge stage was empty and dark except for several spotlights overhead. Members went up into the bleachers and put their bins away, while several Disney employees waited for all of us to assemble.

The show director, a tall, dignified looking gentleman wearing slacks and an opened neck dress shirt introduced himself and thanked the 501st Legion for coming so early and participating in the event. Disney was excited to have us here, he said, and added that we would be a very important part of today's festivities. He estimated that forty thousand people would be in the park today, eliciting noises of astonishment from members of the 501st and Rebel Legion. At last we would find out what it is Disney wanted us to do in the park.

For the re-opening of Star Tours, a huge stage had been set up in front of the Mickey Mouse wizard hat, and Darth Vader was determined to shut down the grand re-opening. Two Jedi would be arriving to stop him, battling Imperial Stormtroopers through the park toward the hat, where they would emerge on stage. When they threw their cloaks back it would be revealed that the two Jedi were none other than Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, and, as the show director put it, "a certain man named Lucas."

A huge cheer went up from the members in the bleachers.

We were separated into two groups; 501st Legion, or the bad guys, into one group, and the Rebel Legion, or the good guys, into another group. We followed one of the show director assistants up the steps of the Indiana Jones arena and out through the darkened entrance of the pavilion, the fake artifacts lurking in the darkness, and into the park itself.

Dawn had not yet encroached into the night sky at 4:30 AM, yet the park was not deserted.

Disney employees were here and there, attending to various tasks, a couple of golf carts drove around importantly, and a row of small, white tents had been put up around the central lagoon of the park, where radio stations would broadcast, and autographs would later be given by visiting celebrities. Inside each tent were a couple of people checking equipment, going over checklists, sipping coffee.

There were no visitors, no camera-carrying tourists, and the shops, restaurants and attractions were all closed. The moon hung like a big silver coin in the deep indigo night sky, competing with the yellowish sodium vapor lights of the park.

image credit: MoreThanMommy

We headed over the the America Idol theater, dropped our bins and bags, and continued on to the wizard hat. A huge stage sat in front of it, with enormous speakers and lights attached to overhead girders; two block-like laser cannons flanked the stage on scissor lifts, the big gun barrels pointed skyward. A massive computer screen hung at the back of the stage, angled down toward the front of the viewing area.

Once assembled the show director explained what he had in mind; his job was to create and choreograph our movements for today's activities. The area would be roped off for us, and the public would be waiting behind the ropes, surrounding the stage. When the Star Wars Imperial March began (our theme music, click HERE to listen to it) we were to rush the stage as if preventing anyone from leaving, providing an intimidating, sinister presence for the crowd. A line of white armored stormtroopers (or TKs, as they're known as in the Legion) would rush the front of the stage and face the crowd; the rest would fill in the side to completely block any escape, and to secure the area for Lord Vader. Once George Lucas and Robert Iger appeared on stage and went through their skit, we would quickly fall back, forming two columns away from the hat, creating a path between which they and members of the press and public would pass on their way to Star Tours.

Photo credit: thedisneyblog.com

As the first light of dawn began to show itself above the American Idol theater, gradually pushing back the night sky, we lined up beside the theater and practiced running toward the stage when the music began playing. None of us were in costume at this point. After two times, the show director was happy with what he was seeing. We then rehearsed falling back into the two columns, moving an arm's length apart, the show director assistants walking up and down the lane, looking at our spacing, having us move back or forth until we were even. It was not long before the Disney show staff were satisfied we knew what to do.

We then grabbed our bins and bags from the entrance steps of the American Idol theater and brought them into the huge theater itself, which of course was empty. Bins were brought up to the back, and in between the rows, and before long it looked like the theater had been invaded by an occupying force.

There was a deep, empty quiet typical of unoccupied theaters. On the large stage, a motorized scissor lift was parked, and crew members were testing stage lights and the rotating American Idol globes that flanked the stage. Two technicians in the control booth overhead turned off some spotlights, turned on others. Members talked in low tones, most of us operating on only a couple of hours of sleep.

We had three hours until show time.

There was a brief meeting with one of the show director assistants once members had assembled, after which everyone began to relax, chat among themselves, some settling down to grab a power nap, others adjusting their costumes, or chatting quietly. Although we had tried to get to bed early the night before, all of us were operating on a serious sleep deficit. 

And then something unexpected happened.

Part 2 - The Park Opens

The theater was quiet with members killing time before getting into their armor and costumes. Randy, the Florida Garrison commanding officer, was up front conferring with one of the Disney employees. Randy was the point person for all interactions between the 501st and Rebel Legion and Disney; he was in charge.

After the Disney show director assistant stepped away, Randy called out, "Listen up! A little birdie told me that there's a fifteen minute wait time for Star Tours. You're on your own."

Wait, what...? We were allowed to go into the park and ride the newly re-opened Star Tours?

A lot of us got up and quickly made for the exit of the theater. This was an opportunity of a lifetime; the chance to ride a newly re-opened attraction on the very first day.

The park by now was open, and lightly populated with early guests. The brilliant blue sky was cloudless, and the new sun had not yet made its appearance over the colorful buildings in the park, which had opened at six am for this special day. My friends and I walked quickly through the park and through people that were beginning to eddy around the entrance to Star Tours, beneath the giant AT-AT which stood frozen, looking down at the activity. Excited and giddy, we went quickly through the entrance, marveling at the changes and improvements, until we were in the ride. It was filled almost entirely with 501st and Rebel Legion members, hooping and hollering with excitement as the ride began. There are over 50 different combinations on the ride, so visitors will not get the same experience twice.

The ride was a huge improvement over the replaced version, which over the years had begun to get dated as newer technology passed it by. When we exited the ride, we were like kids on the first day of summer vacation after school let out. One thing about members of the Legion; they'll have to drag us into maturity kicking and screaming because we won't go willingly.



The park was becoming more crowded now, and after milling around the park I headed back to the American Idol theater. In the roped off area beside the hat and stage, I chatted with a couple of other members about our movements and where we might stop once we rushed the stage, while the growing crowd behind the ropes watched us, waiting for the show to begin. Being able to be part of a Disney production was a rare treat that not a lot of people got a chance to experience.

Part 3 -Showtime

It was almost showtime, and the theater was filled with members putting on their costumes.

Armor was being strapped on and adjusted by members amid the sea of empty seats. Last minute costume adjustments and repairs were being made. Slowly, an invading force was being assembled as members transformed from civilians into Imperial armed forces. At the back of the theater I changed into my Imperial officer costume and assisted other members with putting on their armor, which usually required some assistance. The fasteners and attachment systems usually required some TLC and help fitting just right. As we changed, the stage lights of the American Idol theater would periodically dim or brighten as crew members conducted their tests.

image credit: thedisneyblog.com

Near the exit of the theater members were crowded together, waiting for the signal to exit and emerge from the building to rush the stage. There was a large, down-sloped  area covered by a roof outside the exit used to corral guests waiting to enter;we slowly filed out into this area, lining up in rows.

Dozens of clean white Imperial Stormtroopers were lined up on the ramp and walkway slightly above the floor, followed by the "sandys", or the dirty, Tatooine Stormtroopers, followed by clones, TIE fighter pilots, Imperial gunners and crew, and bringing up the rear, Imperial officers.

Along the perimeter of this covered area Disney employees were looking at us; they rarely saw so many Star Wars costumes assembled in one place. We were an impressive sight. The show began to unfold on the huge stage, which we were unable to see, being below the level of the sides of the open area. Our Disney handlers waited to receive the word that it was time for us to file out and rush the stage. On the multiple screens above, we could see the show as it began, and the thunderous Star Wars music filled the air, drifting over to where we waited.

Our cue came, and the TKs began filing out of the side of the theater, hustling as quickly as they could toward the front of the stage to take up their positions. The line of 501st members began to move out, with the officers bringing up the rear. I walked briskly with the other officers to the side of the stage, where the rest of the 501st members formed an impenetrable wall.








We stood at attention while the show progressed; below is a video clip of the highlights. When the cannons fired, every speaker in the park was synchronized, so that the blast filled the park with a huge, rolling, concussive sound that made the earth and air vibrate. Simultaneously, huge explosions of flame shot up from behind the stage in an eruption of fireworks and smoke. It was a very impressive show and the crowd was enthralled.

 After the speech on stage by Bob Iger and George Lucas, a procession leading from the stage began passing between the two rows. First members of the press with their cameras, then Disney staff members, looking official with their headsets and clip boards, then R2-D2 followed by Lucas and Iger. It was the first time I had seen George Lucas in person; he was dressed in pointed toe cowboy boots, jeans and a plaid shirt, looking like he was getting ready to mount a horse and fix wire fencing on his ranch. Despite being a billionaire, he felt no need to dress in thousand dollar suits, something I respected him for.





The crowd grew thicker as they made their way toward Star Tours, with people slowing to take pictures of us, and members staring straight ahead. I kept my eyes front, sinister scowl on my face and heard a voice say, "Sooo serious!"

It was Serena and Ken, two friends of mine. Ken was a photographer and snapped some pictures as I leered at them. "Oh now he's doing his Snake Plissken expression," Serena quipped, referring to one of my other costumes.





The lane between the members was now much more crowded with guests, at which point Disney gave us the word we were clear to head back to the theater. We began moving through the crowd to the side entrance, where members promptly began de-suiting, packing up their costumes and armor and rolling their bins toward the exit, stage left. In minutes a line of members dragging rolling armor bins was proceeding through the park toward the back-stage entrance, walking back toward the cast parking lot, loading their cars and after receiving their two Disney passes, heading to hotels to catch up on much-needed sleep.

When I got to the hotel and turned on the TV, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross was on TV, with his happy little trees and his deep, stress-reducing voice.

I was asleep in minutes.