Can anyone really love a huge slab of concrete?  I do.  The slab I'm talking about is the one that conjures up wonderful memories for me, the old Disneyland parking lot.  Sadly, it's gone now; Ironically enough, paved over by so-called progress.  It remains in my memories as a reminder of a time when things were simpler, and life, at times, was spectacular.

My first memory of the huge parking lot is from my youth.  I couldn't have been older than 10 years old.  The park still had the old ticket system in place, and we had a huge bag filled with them.  We planned on using them all up that day.  "A" and "B" tickets were the most abundant, but thankfully there were enough "D" and "E" tickets that I was assured of a well rounded time.  I still have some of those old ticket books, somewhere in the house, just in case I ever find an occasion to use them again.

The parking lot was the first stop towards the happiest place on earth.  It was the disembarking point where I was finally able to get out of the over-stuffed car and stretch my legs after the long ride from home.  In the distance were the highest points, the mountain ranges, of the park.  The gleaming white modern summit of Space Mountain called to me first.  It seemed to glow in the aired heat of the California sun.  Beside it stood the snow capped Matterhorn.  Up until that point of my life I had never seen real snow, let alone a snow capped mountain, except here.  I wondered how the snow had not melted in the heat of the sun, for I was already wilting under its ever present gaze.  To the left stood the front gate, and above it the familiar site of the Main Street train station.  I love riding that train, though others in my family wanted to go straight on to the "E" ticket rides.  To the left of that I tried to see the top of Big Thunder.  I thought I could if I stood on my tippy toes on the car's back bumper.  I was small and I could hardly see over the cars to either side of me, let alone the trees lining the park.  The heat from the pavement ate through the bottom of my shoes as I walked up to the entrance.

The trek to the entrance was long, and I could hardly think to believe that I was actually here, but we finally made it in.  The heat would not defeat me until later in the day, for right now I was filled with the excitement only a young boy can feel as he walks into his favorite place on earth.

A day at Disneyland was guaranteed fun, but it doesn't last forever.  As the sun set so was the time allotted for our trip.  I would rest on the ride home, as the grown-ups worried about driving.  I walked my weary body to the car.  I was offered a piggy-back ride, but I thought myself old enough to walk all the way back, and I wanted to prove it.  I was tired, that I was, but also happy.  We all piled into the car, but not before I turned to take one last look at the lights shining from the park.  How I wished that I could stay all night long and bathe in the lights on Main Street.  How I wished that I could sit by the concrete rivers and watch the moon dance upon the water's surface.  How I wished that I could have spent the night in a Mansion filled with ghosts.  How I wished that failing that I could have spent the night gazing at the lights of the park from the parking lot.  I wished so many things.  The lights reached up towards the sky, and I could almost imagine myself floating on the beams, like a feather on the wind.