In 1966 or 1967 Victoria and I were active members of Women Strike for Peace, one of the more radical anti-war groups of the time. A delegation of Communist women from the USSR were scheduled to visit Los Angeles, and they had requested a visit to Disneyland. Somewhere some bureaucrat must have thought, “Who can take Communist women to Disneyland? Oh, there’s that commie pinko women’s group --let’s ask them.” (I was actually called a commie pinko at demonstrations.) How ever it happened, the President of our Chapter of Women Strike for Peace asked for two volunteers to take the Communists to Disneyland, and Victoria and I were the only volunteers.
Victoria and I were in our early 20s and looked much younger. We were very slender and had long, straight, blond hair parted in the middle (hers was natural). I was wearing my patched bell bottom jeans with a halter top and she had on jeans and a T-shirt. We went to LAX and managed to find the Communist women, who were not what we expected. We met three rather stout, middle-aged women dressed in business suits and high heels. I guess in addition to expecting women nearer our own age, we thought they would look poor and starved. We later realized they were wives of high up Communist officials and not radicals.
We found the women, gave them a brief greeting since I was in a hurry to get to Disneyland before it got too crowded, stuffed their suitcases in the trunk, wedged the three of them into the back seat of my yellow Camaro convertible, and hit the freeway at 80 mph with the top down. With the wind and the freeway noise, conversation was impossible. After a while, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw three completely terrified faces, so I responsibly slowed down to 70 mph. When we got to Disneyland, one of them said, “We’re actually here.” This statement did not reflect their amazement at achieving a life long dream, but, as they later told us, their relief that they had NOT been kidnapped by drug-crazed hippies who were taking them out to the desert to kill them.
We marched them down Main Street and got in line for the Matterhorn. The line was long, so we were finally able to converse, and they relaxed a little when they learned that I was a doctoral student at UCLA and Victoria was a married mother of two. They told us about their families and where they were from: one from Russia, one from Mongolia, and the third I can’t remember. Finally we got to the part of the line that is “inside” the ride, where it winds endlessly between barriers. The Russian woman said in disgust, “Typical capitalist deceit! Just when you think you reach the end of the line, there is another line.” She may have been serious, but Victoria and I giggled and started riffing on all the capitalist propaganda in Disneyland, such as Walt Disney’s idealization of Main Street, the exceptionally clean environment, and the unrelieved cheerfulness of the staff.
We five had a grand time, and at the end of the day they hugged us and gave us gifts (we, being clueless, had none for them). Looking back, I can see there were many cultural misunderstandings, but I like to think we overcame them to some degree. We were surprised at how conservative they were, and they were surprised at how liberal we were. We shared a good laugh over their thinking we were drug crazed hippie kidnappers, something they had apparently been warned against before they came. We were mocking their propaganda and our own, and I think they were mocking ours and their own. We were all women simply trying our best to make a better world for our children, and to have a little fun on the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment