How did a 12 year old kid talk Walt Disney into creating a job just for him and end up becoming a Disney legend with his window on Main street usa? Welcome to another episode from the WW Radio Archives. I am Lou Mangello and this is show number 833. And each week I'm going to select an evergreen episode to share that maybe you haven't heard before or one that you haven't heard in a long time. From interviews to top tens relevant reviews, guides, Wayback machines and more, it's a great way to visit or revisit some of our favorite episodes, including ones that you have suggested I share from the archives. And this week I'm going into the WWE Radio Virtual Vault for a special edition from the archives originally recorded back in 2018 on show number 511. And I think that the timing of this episode couldn't be more appropriate and maybe even a little meaningful because as you know, Tom Sorry island in Magic Kingdom is going to close forever on July 7th to make way for a new Cars themed land called Piston Peak national park, which is part of a larger transformation of Frontierland and really the Magic Kingdom as a whole. And so I wanted to go back and revisit really a heartfelt conversation with Disney legend and all around nice guy Tom Nabbe, the real life Tom Sawyer who not only worked with Walt himself, but helped bring Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris to life. From telling newspapers outside Disneyland on its opening day, to influencing Walt to give him a job as Tom Sawyer, to managing the monorail and opening Epcot to become a Disney legend. His story is funny, fun, emotional and a little inspiring. And you're going to hear what Walt Disney was really like in the parks. How Tom literally helped shape Tom Sawyer island, what it was like opening Magic Kingdom and Epcot from the inside, and the legacy he left behind, including his own window on Main street usa. So whether you are nostalgic for the island, fascinated by Disney history, or just love a great feel good story, I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy this conversation with the true Disney original Tom Nabi. And then share with me what's your favorite memory from Tom Sawyer island and how do you feel about this piece of Disney history being replaced? I'd love to hear your thoughts. So come share your memories with me and the rest of the Clubhouse family at www.radio.com clubhouse or better yet, call the voicemail at 407-900-9391. That's 407900, WDW1 and let me know and I will play it on the air. And if you are planning your next Disney vacation, maybe you want to get to Magic Kingdom before Tom's Royal island closes. Whether you're coming to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line or anywhere on the planet, let my friends over at Mousefan Travel help you with expert planning at no cost to you. You can visit them over@m MouseFanTravel.com and the best way to stay connected by getting weekly updates, special offers delivered right to your inbox and my free 102 things to do at Walt Disney World at least once Book subscribe to my newsletter over@wwradio.com and while you're there you can find out how you can support the show and unlock exclusive members only Rewards over at www.radionation.com. watch and chat with me live every Wednesday night@wwradiolive.com and check out the Events page for group trips, cruises and in person events. And don't forget, if you are a creator or solopreneur and you want to turn your passion into your profession, I have courses, coaching and live events like Momentum this Fall in Walt Disney World over@lou mongello.com and if you are looking for a keynote speaker for your business, conference or organization, I speak literally around the world sharing Disney inspired lessons on leadership, customer service, storytelling and how to create real magic in your business and brand. Thank you again for listening for being part of our WW Radio family. Please subscribe, share the show, tell a friend and join me here again next week. And as always, sit back, relax and enjoy this week's episode from the archives on the WW Radio Show.

Sitting here in the lobby of Disney's Polynesian Village Resorts, I am reminded of a quote from a very, very wise man who talked about how you can design and create the most magical place on earth. But it really does take people to make those dreams a reality and I believe that wholeheartedly and I am so incredibly honored and thrilled to be sitting with someone who I have known for years and whose story I'm excited to share with you. In his own words, he is former Disneyland and Walt Disney World cast member. More importantly, he is a Disney legend. He is Mr. Tom Nabbe. Tom, welcome to the show.

Nolan. Thank you very much Lou. Looking forward to it. We've been planning this for almost four years. I think of getting together after a couple of events that we've had and he said oh, you need to get together so I can do an interview. And I think we played tag on several occasions. I guess we have to go back and start a little bit at the beginning. I was born in Santa Barbara, California and we lived there for a while. And my mother married a gentleman by the name of Eddie Mora. And in turn we moved from Santa Barbara to Anaheim just in the late 40s and 50 time frame. I was just starting elementary school and I had dreams of grandeur, of having a paper route. And I found a way that I could ride the bus up to the Coliseum in LA for the football season, sell newspapers. And I was able to earn enough money sell selling newspapers at the Coliseum to buy a bicycle. And once I bought a bicycle, then I could have a paper route. And so I ended up getting a paper route there in la. And I grew up in Florence, Los Angeles, which is right downtown Slauson and Alameda area, if some people know, just right around the block from Watts. So right in that area. And during this time frame in, it was when Disneyland came on television on Wednesday evenings. And you know, television was relatively a new, new thing. You know, had a little black and white TV with the, with, with the, with the big fish tank in front of it to magnify it and that. But my, my mother was a little bit of a, a starlet wannabe. And she used to go up to all the premiere openings up in Hollywood and she's that lady that you see standing, standing behind the barricades with the autograph book looking for everybody to get autographs and, and she used to take us to any, anything that she could get into tv, new TV shows, premiere openings, anything along that line. And she got very enamored with, with Walt and Walt's discussion of Disneyland and where it was being built in Anaheim. And she sort of looked at it and my, my stepfather was a, was a, a G.I. and, and eligible to get a, a G.I. uh, home loan. And so she went down to Anaheim and checked it out and found a place in, In Anaheim about 7/10 of a mile from Disneyland. And she could qualify to buy the house on the GI Bill. So in December of 1954 we relocated from Anaheim, from LA to Anaheim. And when I got to Anaheim, the problem that I found is Anaheim was a very rural community during this time frame. And I couldn't get a newspaper out. Okay, I had my bicycle, but I couldn't get a newspaper route. You had to have a driver's license. And I was only 12 years old, so I wasn't able to drive a car, but I could get a Sunday paper app. And so I developed around neighborhood. I had about 20 to 25 people that deliver the Sunday Herald examiner to. And I had a deal with the manager, newspaper manager, that any papers that he had left over, he couldn't drop off. And what I did is I tried to get over to Disneyland. And they were working three shifts, the construction people. And I'd get over there early on Sunday morning and sell to the third shift of people that were going home Sunday papers. And I met a gentleman by the name of Ray Ahmet. Joe and Ray Ahmet Ahmet had the concession on Main street called Castle News. And they also were going to do a publication called the Disneyland News, which was going to be a monthly newspaper. It told the history of Disneyland to a little bit of upcoming events and what was going on in that month. And all the lessees that had businesses in Disneyland would advertise in this paper. When Disneyland first opened up, there was only about 600 people that actually worked for Walt Disney. There's a people in the administration, people that in the rides and attractions area, the people in maintenance. But all the food locations and all the merchandise locations and everything were run by these lessees. And Joe's had had the concession. He also had wheelchair and stroller rentals to go along with that. And it was one of those where. Where you could get your. Your name put in the headline of the paper or they did wanted posters and that type thing. So he had a. Had a very lucrative business going at that time frame. But he would. He would show up every morning after the park opened, I guess getting a little, little ahead of it. I watched Disneyland grow out of. Out of nowhere. When we moved to Anaheim, they were just starting to build the Santa Ana Freeway. Still was Manchester Boulevard. And they had just finished building the overpass for Harbor Boulevard over the Santa Ana Freeway. And they were working on the overpass for Ball Road that went over the Santa Ana Freeway. So you could get up on the top of the overpass and actually look down into the construction site at Disneyland. And you're looking in. On the. On the backside of Tomorrowland, you see some of Fantasyland. And you could see the back of the buildings on Main street and you could see the train station and then Castle.

You literally watch Disneyland being built, you know, from the outside in.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, especially every Sunday morning when I'm riding up there, stop on the top and see it. And then as it progressed, then they built the berm and that restricted a little bit of the view. And then they landscaped the berm and that walked a little bit more of that view, but it was able to watch it. I remember myself and a couple other guys chasing the TWA rocket down Harbor Boulevard. It was on a flatbed truck, and we were sure we chased it all the way to the Harbor Gate. And then it went inside the park. And so we rode back up to the top of the overpass because we were sure they were going to stand that rocket right up. Well, it took about a week, week and a half before they stood up the rocket in Tomorrowland. So once the. Once the park opened up, Ray told me, he says, you know, come over every morning and I'll be out in front of the gate. And if you sell 100 newspapers outside the gate, then you can sell papers. Continue to sell papers through the day. Just come to the office and pick them up. Okay? So that was a pretty good deal. So on July 17th, guess where we were. We were at Disneyland, and my mother had her autograph book. And that was a press opening, so all those celebrities were there, and she was getting those autographs. I was sort of down around the corner staring through the fence at the Autopia because I wanted to drive them Utopia cars. Now, realize I'm 12, okay? So I really wanted to drive those Autopia cars. And back during this time frame, Highway Patrol was a very popular TV show. And they had six cars on the Utopia, were done in black and white and looked like the Highway Patrol. And they have flashing red lights and a siren, and they didn't have any governor on it. And I'll talk about that a little bit later here. So ran over there. Well, what happened is Danny Thomas was coming out. My mother asked Danny Thomas for an autograph, and he very cordially gave her an autograph. And he sort of leaned forward and he said, hip, have you been in the park? And my mother said, oh, no, we weren't invited. He says, well, I got a couple extra tickets, okay? And so he gave my mother two tickets. And sure enough, boy, she come down me and we went into the park as guests of Danny Thomas on the press opening of Disneyland. Now I have. I have my ticket still. And if you look at the ticket, there's no serial number on the ticket. So if anybody ever asks you, Tom Navy, as ticket number one to the press opening of Disneyland. Now, they were sort of broke down in. In time frames. My tickets say 5. 5:30pm I think on them, and the ones in the archive say 2:30pm so there were sort of just stagger people coming in and you can sort of go back and say if they didn't number the tickets, you probably didn't know how many tickets they have. That gets back to that, that, you know, the Black Sunday analogy of working at Disneyland. So we got inside and I, I remember we did ride the carousel and I know we went to, to Carnation Gardens and we got a, we had a soda. Carnation Gardens. Not Carnation Gardens, but Carnation on Main Street. But I think that's the dirtiest or trashiest. I think it'd be a better word. The trash is I've ever seen a Disney park in my 50 year career. And I think Walt's all the same thing because from that point forward, cleanliness was right on top of the list. And that's something he preached to everybody. And if you ever walked the park with Walt, you know, he bent over and he was picking up trash as he went through. And that's something you learn. My wife threatened to divorce me one time because I was picking up trash in the Florida mall. But it's just one of those things that you can get conditional.

My wife says I pick up more garbage at Disney World than I do at my house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny how you get conditioned on those things. So on the 18th, my, my neighbor across the street, Doug Harmon, and I, we went over and sit in line and bought tickets to go in the park. Cost us 50 cents. And that was a child's admission at that time frame. The next day, on the 19th of July, I went to work as a doozy, okay? So I met, I met Ray Ahmed out in front of the gate, got my hundred papers, sold those, that was a slam dunk. All those people standing in line waiting to buy tickets and they wouldn't need you. And people read newspapers back at that time frame. So I sell those hundred papers and then I was able to get inside the park. Well, those of us that sold all our papers out early, we get inside the park and we run over to Tomorrowland, okay? Because what they needed was to get all the cars driven around and lined up for when the guests would come in on the Utopia, okay? So we'd all run over there to drive the cars around to get them lined up. And every once in a while you get to drive one of them police cars. So that was, that was sort of neat.

You had dreams coming true literally on day one. Like you were in Disneyland, working at Disneyland, and you got to drive the Car that you wanted to. That you were looking at 48 hours earlier through the fence.

Yes. Yeah. And it was the end of the first summer. And I don't remember who, but somebody mentioned to me that Walt was going to build Tom Sawyer's island on the rivers of America and that you look just like Tom Sawyer and you should ask Walt for a job.

Now, had anybody told you that before that you look like Tom Sawyer? It was only because this was when we come into the park.

No. Well, my, my mother would, you know, the star that wanted me would dress me up in a costume anyway, so, so I was. I had cut off Levi's and a straw because my complexion. I had a straw hat and. And she puts suspenders and I had a blue and white checkered shirt and, and that was the costume that I wore to, to sell newspapers. Okay. And people would say, oh, you look like Huck Finn or you look like Tom Sawyer, that type thing. So it wasn't unusual for this, this person to tell me that you, you know, you look like Tom Sawyer said as well, for a job. And so what was in the park quite frequently back during that time frame, I think everybody where, you know, he had the apartment above the, the fire station. He'd drive down on Friday evenings from the studio and spend, you know, Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday morning, then he drive back up to the studio in there. So, so it's pretty available. And Walt used to walk around the park quite a bit and he didn't look anything like the Walt Disney that you saw on tv. You know, he usually had a couple days growth of beard. He had a white panama hat and a pair of gray trousers and, and a blue jacket. And he sort of walked around. So if you didn't really know it was Walt Disney, you would recognize Walt Disney. But, but I in turn, I recognized Walt and I approached him and introduced myself and told him I had heard he was going to build Tom Sawyer and I looked just like Tom Sawyer and he should hire me. Well, he didn't because if, if, if he, if he had said no, we wouldn't be here talking. But what he said is, I'll think about it. And I. And you know, I sort of reflect a little bit back on that and sort of realize that he may not have thought he was going to have a Tom Story. He was going to build Tom Sawyer's island. But sort of that the guests that went there were going to be Tom Sawyer. Sort of like the people went on, on Snow White. Okay. That you were actually Snow White. You didn't see Snow White in the attraction. So I think I convinced him into hiring a Tom Sawyer. So. So he said he'd think about it. And so for almost. For the next year, anytime I could find Walt, and I asked him if he's still thinking about hiring me as Tom Sawyer. I remember one conversation that we had that he told me that he could. He could probably put a. Was it a dummy or mannequin? I think it was a mannequin over on the island that wouldn't be leaving every five minutes for a hamburger, a hot dog, or a Coke, that type thing.

So I want to stop you for a second because I think there's something really interesting and profound about what you said was, you know, on day one, you approached Walt, and throughout the year you approached Walt. I think the fact that not only was he present, but that he was approachable and that you, as a young boy, didn't look at him as somebody who was on tv, that you felt comfortable enough to approach him, I think says a lot. Not only about you, but I think about Walt himself, in that he allowed himself to not be removed from the cast members, but to be accessible.

Well, but you look at this whole time frame. Walt had a lot of child actors and actresses. Mickey Mouse Club was very strong. He had two daughters, okay. And so he was fairly comfortable talking with kids. The other thing is, he'd listen to you, okay? He wouldn't cut you off, he wouldn't boo, boo you, shoo you away, or what? He'd listen to what you had to say, and then he'd address what you said. And that's like I say when I asked him to hire me Tom stories? No, but I'll think about it. You know, it's. It's not one of those.

And so is that something that was like, you woke up in the morning and like, today I'm going to find Walt and I'm going to ask him to hire me. Or was that something that just sort of came to you on the spot?

I don't remember waking up with and having it strike me as. As the something that I needed to do that day. It just materialized. I was in the park and what was in the park, and I pretty much had a goal. I accomplished one of those just recently when I was made a Disney legend. That's the same time that Peter Jennings passed away and Bob Iger went to Peter Jennings funeral and Marty Sklar hosted the Legends program. And so I didn't get a photo op with him, but I went on my bucket list. And it took me 12 years. But this last D23 at Disneyland, I got my photo op with Bob Iger. We were walking. Walking up to Legends luncheon, and I saw Bob and I said, bob, you know, I didn't get my picture with you back when I was made a legend. Would you pose with me now? He said, absolutely. And so I ended up getting. So I'm sort of tenacious along that line. I've been that way all my life. And, you know, maybe if it isn't a good thing this week, in two weeks from now, it's a good thing. So you always keep those things in the back of your mind so you can in turn inject those a while. I think we talk over lunch about a couple of those things that, you know, we did that back in the 50s or whenever.

So you go to Walt and you sort of plant this seed in his head that he. It wasn't an idea that he had. You know, you really came up with the concept. How does it go from seeing him in the park and planning that idea one day to, you know, him? How does it go to you actually becoming.

Well, I was in the penny arcade. I remember this vividly, spending my hard earned paper money playing the baseball machine in the penny arcade. Because I absolutely love that baseball machine. And a gentleman by the name of Dick Nunes came up and tapped me on the. And Dick, at that time frame was the supervisor of Frontierland. And Dick said, I know you know Dick, but. But, you know, when Dick says, come with me, you don't argue with Dick. You go with. So Dick says, come with me, Tom. And so I went with Dick. And.

And you're probably not thinking this is something good at this point. When Dick Nooter says, you guys should.

Throw me out of the park, he usually accuses me of sneaking in. I didn't sneak in, but I got in there illegally, But. But in turn. So I'm. I'm walk. And we were going over to Frontierland. And this is when the chicken plantation was still there in the Indian village. You walked over this little bridge, and a Frontierland train station was there. Chicken plantation. And the Indian village was all compacted back in that area. And Walt and Morgan Evans, Bill Evans, the landscape architect for Disneyland and Walt Disney World, were coming off the island on a rack. And Walt said, you know, when he got to the dock and. And Savvy says, you still want to be Tom Sawyer? And I said, Absolutely, Mr. Dilly, I do. And he says, well, super. You need to get a work permit and a Social Security card. And okay. And he says, once you do that, I'll put you to work as Tom Sawyer. So getting the Social Security card wasn't any problem. I just went to the office of Santa and fill out the form and got Social Security card. Okay. Now, the work permit was a little bit more of a challenge. I had to go to school and I had to get a form. Then I had to take that form to the employment office. And then the employment office had to fill out the form and answer all the questions. Then I had to return that form back to school. And then in turn, they would issue me a work permit. Okay? So in turn, I got my form and I went in. The employment office for Disneyland was in an old house on west street, just opposite of the Disneyland Hotel, and that was the employment office. And I went inside and lady there and I told her my story that Walt had hired me to be Tom Ture. And she gave me one of these nods. Oh, yeah, okay. And asked me to have a seat. And this side of the story I hear from Dick is that she went and told Chuck Whalen, who is the manager of employment, that, you know, I have this kid out here and that Dick Nunes knows all about it. And so Chuck picked up the phone and called Dick and said, dick, I got this kid over here that says that Walt hired to be Tom Sawyer. And Dick said, yeah, I took a little bit of a deep breath and told Chuck, I says, chuck, you know, Walt did hire him. Let your conscience be your guide. And at that point, all my paperwork got filled out and I went to work as Tom Sawyer. Now what did Tom Sawyer do? Okay, well, first of all, they assigned me to Entertainment to work for Tommy Walker, who is the director of entertainment, back that time and only lasted about two weeks because they didn't know what the hell to do with me. So they gave me back to the rides and attraction side, back to Dick notice. So under him, one of the conditions of employment was I had to bring in my report card. And if I didn't maintain a C average, I was no longer employed. And I know Dick reviewed my. I think Walt assigned Dick to. To review my report card. But so in turn, you know, I posed for a lot of pictures. We had stocked the rivers of America with bluegill and. And catfish and. And sun perch and had the area. There was two piers right across from the landing for the Mark Twain. And they had that area netted off, and that's where the fish were stocked in that Area people could.

You could actually fish at that point. And it wasn't catch and release, right?

Oh, no. At this point, it was catch and clean. And part of Tom Sawyer's job was to clean the fish if the guests wanted to clean. And I had some plastic bags, and in turn, I cleaned the fish. Well, that didn't last very long either. Maybe, maybe two months, if it lasted that long. From June, July. By August, old smelly fish had showed up in places where you didn't want old smelly fish. So we went from a catch and clean to a catch and release. And I went through and debarbed all the, all the hooks. But there was two fishing piers. I'd have 25 fishing poles on each of the piers, had worms for bait, had little cans nailed up around the. The railing and would put a topsoil in the, in the cans, and I'd put the. The worms actually came packaged in smart pills. Rabbit poop. Yeah. So. So you had to take them from there and put them into. To the.

So you were doing a little bit of procurement as well as sort of, you know, guest. Because really, what was your, what was your title? I mean, did you have a. I.

Would call the guest aid. Sound like.

I didn't know what else to call.

You're right. Sounds like a good job description. And like I say, I posed for a lot of pictures, abated a lot of fishing hooks, repaired a lot of fishing poles, and I was either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, whatever the guests wanted me to be. When you really look at it, Huckleberry Finn had the fire red hair and the freckles. Tom was sort of more of a sandy blonde kid. But.

So wait, so while, while you're sitting there and you're deboning fish in the middle of the summer, de gutting. I'm sorry, de cutting. When you're de. Cutting these fish in Disneyland in the middle of summer, are you like, yeah, this is exactly what I hoped I was going to be doing when I walked up to Walt.

No, but, but, but it was. I don't think I ever went through my. It was part of his job. That was explained to me as part of the job. So that was acceptable. You know, back in those days, you did a lot of things that, you know, you were just told, you know, you know, that's the job. Do it.

You want to pose for pictures. You're also going to clean some fish.

Yeah. So. And I, I would respond either Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. I didn't respond to Becky Thatcher or India joke. And I did that all through junior high school and high school. I remember one time Walt came over to the park and early, early one morning and he said, you know, Tom, I'm going to rehab. Tom Sawyer's island, let's walk the island. And I want you to tell me what you think the island needs. And I'm going, okay, that's, that's pretty good. Now, later in my life we were told, thou shall not art direct. But during this time, I hadn't had that, that speech yet. So we were walking the island and I told you, well, that we had lookout point, okay? And I told Wallace, well, we're. Lookout point is we need a tree house, okay? And then we have Fort Wilderness. And you know, we needed an escape tunnel from Fort Wilderness. And so when the island came back up from, from rehab in 1958, okay, we had an escape tunnel from Fort Wilderness. We had a tree house up on the top of the island. We also had Merry Go Round Rock, Teeter Totter Rock, Castle Rock. But those weren't part of my ideas. I think those were Walt's ideas. Okay, so in turn, I'll take credit for art directing the treehouse and the escape tunnel.

But did it sink into you then? I mean, obviously, certainly now that you, you know, Walt didn't dismiss you as a 12 year old boy with silly ideas. He actually took ideas and he executed on them. So when the island reopens and you look at it, was there that sense of pride, like I did that, like that was all my idea.

I was very impressed that we had a treehouse at escape tunnel. But I think Gwalt's philosophy all through his life has always been employee involvement. All the people that worked at WED was people that he'd go talk to and say, you know, what would you like to do? And then he'd say, okay, well, you're going to go to work for WED and you can go do what you want to do. Like the, like the Bob Gurs and Waitha Rogers and all those people out there. And Walt listened to a lot of people. You know, when he was in there in the morning, he was talking to the landscape people, he was talking to the security people. That's another one. When the park opened, security was a, was a lessee. It was Burns Detective Agency. And I hear the story on one of them that Walt got up one. And I walk in the park one night out of the apartment and one of the Burns Detective Agency guards approached him and said, you know, who are You. And he said, well, I'm Walt Disney. And he says, I don't care who you are, you know, you can't be out here at this time of night. And at that point is, we no longer have Burn Detective Agency. We had Walt had Disney Security. So those are those stories that goes along that line. But Walt listened to the guests, Walt listened to the people. He was always asking, how can we do it better? What do we need? And trying to get a whole feel for what was going on during that timeframe.

And I think just as a quick aside, so much about the story you've told so far from a business and entrepreneurial perspective. So you were the. The young, consummate entrepreneur from a young age. You had that hustle, you had that drive. You certainly had the courage to be able to go for the thing that you wanted, whether it was the paper route to get to the bicycle, to get to Disneyland, to get to become Tom Sawyer slash Huck Finn slash Fish Cutter, to being able to go to somebody who was the head of this company, who not just pacified you by listening, but actually paid attention and took the recommendations that you and others made to heart. I mean, I think there's a lesson to be taken away from there, not just as an employee, but certainly as an employer that, you know, you are not the end all. Be all that. That sometimes the people who work for you and with you, you know, are able to contribute in remarkable ways.

Yeah, well, I think part of, you know, Lou, what you have to understand is I didn't go. Yeah, I went and found Walt, but Walt came to me also. So it's. It was. It was one of those. It was sort of a. Sort of a two way street. So. So he was soliciting my input versus me, soliciting him to hire me. So. So it was. It was even more impressive, right? Yeah, yeah. It was sort of a mutual relationship there. You know, the last time I remember seeing Walt was one of the deals that YOW is looking for is that if Walt got totally inundated with people wanting autographs and that type of thing, he wasn't that familiar with on how to get out or backstage in the park. And I remember it was in the early, early 60s. It was after Mary Poppins. It was in the early 60s, it was in Frontierland, and he was sort of inundated. And we were in between the Oaks Tavern and the Malt Shop there where the Silver Banjo. And so I helped Walt get backstage and I told me, I'm Tom Navy, you hired Me to be top sergeant. I said oh yeah, I remember that. And so we talked for a little bit. But that was my last encounter with Walt was back at that time frame.

Did it as a kid, did the scope and the magnitude of not just who you were working for, but who you were able to have such personal contact with, did it impact you then or. It wasn't until maybe later on that the importance and the magnitude of who he was and the relationship that you had with him kind of sunk in.

Well, you saw him every night on Wednesday night on television. So he's very much a celebrity. And you know, understand my mother was enamored with celebrities.

Is he asking for Walter? Did he ask you to get his autograph?

She tried a couple times. She didn't have, she didn't have that, that, that all those autograph books ended up with my younger sister. So I, it was one of the things that I really wanted, but that didn't materialize. But yeah, you know, a lot of it is being at the right place at the right time and knowing what the opportunity is and seizing that opportunity. You know, I look at today's world and, and there's a lot of people out there that are very focused. I was, I was very open to change. A lot of people have their, their entire goals laid out for them and they know if they don't. Do you know, if I don't make director in five years, I'm going to go someplace else and try. Okay, so. So those are those things that you learn and dealing with the people. I think that's part of, part of. One of the things that I really feel so satisfied out of, out of my years of employment is the folks that I've worked with, that I've watched and mentored and watched them grow and mature into professions either within the Disney experience or outside in the real world. Just, you know, back in the, in the. Every day was a, was a new record, a new learning curve, a new way of doing it. There wasn't a college of hospitality like there is today. You can't go to UCL and go to Rosens College of Hospitality. There wasn't a college of hospitality back there. And you learned as you went forward and, and you have some great teachers and great mentors. I think one of my, my stepfather took off when I was fairly, fairly young. So a lot of the people at Disneyland filled in that void for me and became my, my surrogate fathers and, and mentors to. Through my life. That's how I ended up in Florida. Is, is one of those, one of those guys was going to be the, the operations manager for the transportation operation here in Florida. And he wanted me to open the monorail system for him. So.

Because after, after being Tom in Disneyland, you stayed in Disneyland for a while. You had other roles and responsibilities there too, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. That, that first summer was a slam dunk. I turned, I turned 18 and in, in 1961, I was right operator. And I had learned how to drive a raft long before I became a. I used to come in early in the morning and the guys would teach me how to drive and that type thing. So, so I was a very experienced raft operator before I was old enough to technically drive a raft. And so I started out very, very quickly on Tom Sawyer's Island. And actually I was a working foreman four days a week, what they call relief foreman. The, the, the day foreman had two days off, the night foreman had two days off. So I would fill and cover, cover their shifts. And so I, I was in a leadership role fairly, fairly early. And then that Disneyland was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays in the wintertime. So on a, on a Sunday evening, my supervisor that time Jim Hot and Jim came over and handed me a script and he says, memorize this. You go to work on the jungle on Wednesday morning and so show up at the jungle on Wednesday morning. And so I stopped by wardrobe and got. Changed my Tom Sawyer's costume for a Jungle Cruise costume and, and showed up and made three or four trips. And then from that point forward, I was a jungle skipper. And there were two attractions that you knew you were going to work as a male operator that had the largest manpower was the submarines and the Jungle Cruise. Okay, Those two attractions had the most amount of male employees. So you were going to work those as you worked up through the seniority list. Then you were able to work on other attractions with Disneyland being closed on Monday and Tuesdays. So you had a, you had a schedule on Saturday at a schedule on Sunday, you had a schedule on Wednesday. So it was usually eight hours, eight hours and four hours. And if Wednesday was busy, they would extend the shift down. So I was having trouble making my rent on, on, on 20 hours a week. So what I would do is I would come in on, on Thursday mornings and on Friday mornings and sit in the operations office and wait for people calling sick. Okay? So in turn, a lot of attractions I didn't know because I was there, they went out and trained me. So the next time somebody called in sick, I was trained and Ready to go on that.

So you sort of made yourself the relief pitcher that just sat there on deck. You know, whenever somebody was going to be sick, you were going to be the guy that they went to.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well that in order to get the dollars to do that too. And so I learned a lot of attractions that that first year very, very, very quick and, and worked. Almost every attraction in the park were the exception of the monorail and steam trains. And the reason being that those two attractions were run by Retlo and Retlaw is Walter spelled backwards. And Retlaw was a company that the Disney family owned. Okay. And they actually ran the monorail and steam drains and the situation. In order to work on the monorail they wanted this image and you had to be six foot tall. Well, I was never going to be six foot tall. So that's why I never worked on the monorail.

I feel your pain. Don't worry. So you are there for a number of years. So you meet your wife eventually at Disneyland.

Yeah, well, yeah, we're right about that time frame. In 1965, all the lessee contracts started to expire. Some were five year contracts, a good portion were ten year contracts. And all the fast food operations at Disneyland was run by you upt United Paramount Theaters, which was a subsidiary of abc. How things go around, they come around, that type of thing. And their contract ran out and they took about oh, 50 of us and trained us in management, in fast food operations. And so I went to work in Oaks Tavern in Frontierland. And my wife to be was elite counter lead in there. And right at the same time frame I got an invite from my other uncle. Not Uncle Walt, Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam wanted me to participate in a little bit of a war in Vietnam. And there was no way I wasn't going to pass a physical. And so I sort of made we do some dumb things in our life. But I sort of said if I'm going to go to Vietnam, in my mind I want to be the best train. And as far as I'm concerned, the Marine Corps is going to train me the best to survive. So I went down and enlisted in the Marine Corps and I listed for a three year hitch. And the reason, the reason being a three year hitch. I had no reserve time. It was three years active duty, three years inactive duty because the people that were in active reserves weren't real high on the schedules list because they had to go play soldier one weekend a month and they had to had to do a summer camp and that type of thing. So I didn't want that obligation. And so I ended up going in the Marine Corps and I had orders to Danang and I had everything all packed up and I had had. They made an aviation radio repairment out of me. Somehow my aptitude was strong electronics and I ended up going to school by signing up for a three year hitch. I was eligible for all the schooling that a four year hitch would have. So I ended up going to radio repair school. The incentive to graduate from radio repair school was that if you failed, they made a radio operator out of you. And the life expectancy of a radio operator was rather short. So he didn't want to be a radio operator. So I passed and I ended up getting promoted to corporal out of school. And I had orders to Da Nang. And I had everything packed up and going home on it was a St. Patrick's Day weekend. And on I. I had the battle of Highway 101, Pacific Coast Highway. A drunk hit me head on and tried to kill me and put me in the hospital for five months. And then from there I ended up going back to school. And this is the same time the Walt passed away when the New York World's Fair. And Walt's passing happened all during the time that I was in the Marine Corps. And so I end up getting mustered out of the Marine Corps, went back to Cal State Fullerton, dreams of grandeur, of being an electronical engineer. About a year and a half into schooling at Cal State Florida I realized I wasn't going to be a good electronical engineer. And what I really wanted to be was in rides and attractions at Disney. And they started interviewing there for all the people that come to Florida. So I went through around the interviews and I ended up getting promoted into management in 1970. And just prior to that I was home on leave and I ran into a mutual friend of my wife and she gave me Janice's number and I called her and we started dating and we got married in June in 1968.

So everything that's the plane is literally in flight. In terms of Walt Disney World coming into being, how does it come to pass that you. Because I want you to tell the story of not just how you literally made your way out to Florida, but how did it come to pass that you were going to come out here and be part of the opening team for Walt Disney World?

Well, I only thought I was going to be in Florida for three years. I had the opportunity to interview to open the monorail system here with Pete Crimmings who I had worked for off and on through the years, and was one of my mentors. And we were. The company was going to build a ski area in Mineral Cake, which was just south of Sequoia National Forest, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. So that was my goal and to go to work in transportation and to make a name for myself and transportation. And then the whole concept of Mineral King was they were going to build a parking area in a village. And everybody got transported from the parking area up to the village. So transportation was a very key element in all there. So, in turn, I came down to Florida. I'd never been east of Phoenix. My mother tells me we went to Chicago on the train, but I don't remember that. But Janice and I made that decision. And I had two Volkswagens at the time. And so we, we decided to drive a Volkswagen and tow a Volkswagen. Had a. Had a. A dark blue convertible and had a yellow Volkswagen in the back of the yellow Volkswagen. Had, uh, a sign put in a. Two more books for Florida. And so we drove country, cross country. Took us about six days to drive here. It was. It was rather interesting. It was like 30 miles an hour up the overpass and 70 miles an hour down the overpass. The one, the one that was really scary was coming through the mobile tunnel. Okay. So coming down in the tunnel, I'm click. I'm staying up with the traffic. Well, coming up on the other side of the tunnel, I'm running a little slow, and I get over and clear. And right there, there are toll booths, okay. And I got. I got. I got the brakes on. I got the emergency, and we're sliding through and. And slow right through the tow block. I had to get out and go back and pay for both cars to go back to get in. But that was a little scary on that one.

So you're.

You're.

Again, this dream of wanting to operate the monorail comes to fruition in a very. In a different time, in a different way, in a different place, because it takes you coming out to what little there was of Orlando at that time to help sort of manage the monorail operations and part of the construction, too.

Yeah. Well, there's a whole concept that was developed during New York World's Fair called pico Project installation coordination. Okay. And what they do is they take people out of the operating side, and you get assigned into the. Into the construction and project side, and your coordinators sort of go first or whatever needed to. To help along that line. And Then as you hire people, you train those people and then when the attraction opens up, then you become the management group that operates that rides and attraction. So that was sort of the philosophy on the, and the monorail is my, my attraction. And the, the, we had the two beams, the Express Beam and Local Beam. The contemporary. And why we're sitting in here in the Polynesian were the two hotels on the, on what we call the Local Beam. And the Express beam went from the TTC Ticket Transportation center to the Magic Kingdom. Okay. So that was the concept up behind the monorail system.

So if the stories that I've heard are true, you very much were a hands on person when it comes to your monorail. And when I say hands on, I mean not boots on the ground, I mean boots on the beam. Is it true that you used to walk the beams?

Well, US Steel built the two hotels in the golf resort and also a, a complex called the Court of Flags down on, on I4 and Sand Lake right in that area. Well, they were very difficult to deal with. Yeah, thank God that Roy bought them out right after opening. But they were very difficult to go. It would take me sometimes as long as four hours just to get clearance. Okay. To get into the hotel to check my stations. Okay. Pastor security people, because I didn't work for US Steel, I worked for, for Disney. Okay. So I found the easiest way for me to check the stations was to walk the beam to the polish. No big deal. Maybe, maybe two city blocks to the Polynesia. Now the beam is 30 inches wide. So it's, it's, it's, it's wider than this table. Okay.

So I mean, 30 inches isn't a lot when you're, you know, 60ft above the ground.

Well, yeah, and you know, you don't do it in high winds and lightning and thunderstorms. But in turn, I could get up into the contemporary very quickly. The problem that we had was the two beams that were on the north end of the contemporary were all the beams that you look that have the curved bottom to them. Those were fabricated in Tacoma, Washington and shipped here by rail to Taft. And from Taft they were trapped over to property. Well, the two beams that were the 110 foot long beams were on the north end of the Contemporary Hotel. The train went right and the beams went straight ahead and had a snowstorm right after that. So we couldn't find the beams. So they had to in turn refabricate those beams. So we're about almost three months late in closing the loop on the Monorail to have a closed loop. So we did a lot of training and a lot of shoveling going back and forth. But in turn, I'd check the stations out and in a very short period of time, just by clicking up there and back. When we originally opened the monorail system, the monorail, the parking lot, watercraft and the submarines were all on the same radio frequency. And what we didn't realize is that the batteries on the radios in the monorail had a very short transmit life on it. So you could only transmit maybe 2, 3 minutes and you were out of battery. You could listen, but you couldn't transmit. And I remember one, one breakdown I had young lady in the, in a train and, and she did her transmission and then we couldn't talk to her. And so the easiest thing was to walk out on the parallel, because beams are parallel. Walk out on the parallel beams, have her open up the door. I talked her through what she needed to do and had the work tractor come out and tow her train in and get the guests off and that type of thing. But it was one of those, those things that you did without a harness.

You're not safety rigged. You're just, you just walk on the beams.

Yeah, yeah.

It was a different day and age, right.

It was a different world back in that time frame. I would say if the director knew that I was what, he'd probably be a little, Little.

Right?

Yeah. A little upset with me. But, you know, yeah, those are, those are things, you know, we, you know, we rode in cars without seat belts. We drank water out of the hose in the yard. You know, there was a lot of stuff that we, that we did back there that you wouldn't dare in today's world.

And they had, There actually were plans because people still to this day talk about expanding the market. I mean, there were plans at one point, right, to expand the monorail out to, to like 192, like an industrial park, weren't there?

Well, if you look at the entire project, okay, you know that the Magic Kingdom and what you see today, I think was in phase 35 or 37 or whatever, but in between the Magic Kingdom complex and what was proposed as the original EPCOT project, there was a whole industrial park and an airport, okay? So all those things were, were in the, in the master plan. Now, as you know, the master plan didn't get totally, totally built. But yeah, I talked about. But when, when you're to the mine, rail is very costly and the advantage here was you have sort of a restricted Everybody's got to either ride the monorail back then or the Osceolas or the trams. Okay. Didn't have the bus fleet we have today. Didn't have the ferries that we had today. Don't. Didn't have 10 monorails as we have today. And six car monorails versus six, five car monorails. Yes. So, you know, things have changed, and then going forward, and so your role.

In Walt Disney World changed. So again, you know, it's interesting going from a very onstage presence as Tom Huck to sort of more backstage with the monorails. But that was not your only role in Disney. Right. You ended up doing more in terms of logistics and whatnot.

Well, I. I sort of got tagged as a nuts and bolts guy and sort of got tagged as. As the guy that you wanted on your team. New construction and new openings. And so after. After we opened the monorail up, I ended up decided to build Tom Sawyer's island and Frontierland, Liberty Square and the Richard F. Irvine. So I went on that project the minute we wrapped up that project in 1973. Went on a project to rebuild Tomorrowland. When Tomorrowland opened up, it was pretty scarce of what was in the Tomorrowland area. And so we put in the Wedway, the Star Jets, Carousel of Progress, and Space Mountain. So 73 to 75. And then once we opened all that up, then the decision was to take 20,000 leagues down. And when we originally opened 20,000 leagues, all the art directors that came out here went to Silver Springs and were enamored with the clarity of the water and everything. And so the decision was to pump the water out of the aquifer through 20,000 leagues. From 20,000 leagues, that went into the moat, and from the moat, that went to the Jungle Cruise, and from the Jungle Cruise, that went into the rivers of America. From the rivers of America, went down the Lightboat channel into the Seven Seas Lagoon. And from the Seven Seas Lagoon, they got distributed over the 55 miles of drainage canals that are on property. Okay, well, that was great. The only trouble is you didn't have the volume of water coming and being pumped through 20k that you had coming out of. Out of the springs that silver shrinks. And they started getting pockets of dead air in that and algae started growing. So it finally made the decision to enclose 20k and chlorinate it and filter it. And so we did that in 1975. And so once we wrapped that up and opened that back up and got that running, had the opportunity to go back to Frontierland because we're going to build this little train over there called Big Thunder. Okay. And so we, we built Big Thunder and just right as we opened up Big Thunder, there was another little project down the road. They got funded and ready to go. And if you remember when I said earlier I only came to Florida to be here for three years, well, we were going to build an area, a ski area in, in Mineral King. Well, that sort of got shut down by the Sierra Club because of the roadway that had to be built there. And the Sierra Club didn't want that roadway built and they petitioned. So, so that one got. So that project moved to an area above Truckee, California which is north, just north of Lake Tahoe. And that clicked along quite well until there was a little conflict of, of people going on our board from the, in order to get the permits and everything going on there. And Cod Walk Walker @ that point basically said no, we aren't going to build any ski areas and all the monies that we have, I'm going to focus on, on the Epcot project. So if you sort of look at it as Disneyland was Walt's park, Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom with Sir Royce Park. Yeah, you know, Walt's Walt Disney dreams and ideas and that type thing. But, but Roy brought it into this world and Card decided that, you know, Epcot was going to be his park. If you a little farther down the road then you know the studio and Animal King Kingdom ties into Eisner and in his parks and Shanghai is, is uh, Irish Park. So, so you say everybody and I sort of look and the company sort of has a, a 20 year cycle. So in the 20s, Disney was developed in the 40s, went through World War II and it almost cost the, the company getting in the 60s. Walt passed away in the 80s, was the end of the Eisner era and the Eiger era and we're getting ready for another one down the road. But I sort of look at big 20 year cycles along that now I forgot where we were going in the conversation that I went out into the Never Never Land. Oh, I got, I got a call and asked if I wanted to be involved in the Epcot project. And I said oh absolutely. Norm Durgis and Bill Sullivan were going to be the guys out there. And I thought I was going to be a pavilion coordinator. But in turn Norm wanted me to run a warehouse complex that they had. We were in the process of developing what we called an item tracking system for ofi. OFI is owner Furnished Items So anything that we bought for show insulation, it was basically going to be installed by Buena Vista Construction. Okay. Was called ofi and we would tag and label that. So all the show set pieces, all the props, all the animation, all that stuff fell in that category. And what was going to happen was there was going to be a warehouse. The warehouse, that project, it was scheduled for later installation. Anything that came and could be installed was directly to the site to be installed. And I had a crew of people that were working for me, and that's what we did. Okay. And so in turn went through the opening of Epcot. That was, that was a real, you know, had gone through the, you know, through the opening of Disneyland as a child, went through the, the opening of Walt Disney World as a Magic Kingdom as a young adult and epcot. Now I had the chance to use all those skill sets to go forward. And it just fit like a glove right in there and, and headed. Headed down the road. I adapted very quickly to the warehouse operation. I sort of took that in my mind and it's, it's sort of almost like, like any ride or traction or running a parking lot. You got to bring things in, you got to park it, you got to be able to get. So that's the way. So I got. Was real easy to equate to that. This owner furnished. We gave everything an item number. All the shows were built and bought off in California and they were built in to Hunga. Our directors would buy them off and then they would disassemble them, number and label them, load them on a truck, send them to Florida either to be warehoused or to be installed. And they get to Florida and a good portion of it is we handle about $400 million worth of materials through the warehouse. You'd open the back of the truck and you look and you go, God, how did they get that in there? Okay, then the next question is, how are we going to get it out of there and not break it? Understand, this is a one of a kind item. You can't go to Home Depot and buy another one. So. So in turn, that was the challenge that went along that. And we went all through that process. And I think, you know, if you've storming in the Magic Kingdom or that type thing that, you know, EPCOT come real close to bankrupting this company and did not hit the return on investment. And so all of us that went through that opening that process and getting through that relief all of a sudden got into another of. You didn't know if you're going to have a job tomorrow. Okay. But you know, thank God that, that Roy Disney went out and did his thing and, and got the Bass brothers on board and made the decision to hire Frank Wells and, and Michael Eisner and, and brought those people on and got everything coming out of it. Right at that time frame, I made a major career change. I went from being in rides and attractions and guests oriented to the support side of the business. I like what I did in the warehouse portion of it during nabcot and I sort of enjoyed that and had a job opportunity to go into warehousing for Walt Disney World and I did that for the last 22 years of my career.

So your three year stint at Walt Disney World did not just take you from Anaheim to Orlando, but somehow your circuitous journey also took you to Paris? Correct?

Yes. After, after we went through that whole process of storming the Magic Kingdom, getting everything back online and this property just exploded with hotels and hotel rooms and the stock went from Chunk Shang shipped up into the hundreds again. And the whole decision that Michael made was to build a park and Paris. And so we in turn, I had the director of distribution for Disneyland Paris, as it was called Euro Disney back at that time frame over for almost a year training with us. And he felt pretty comfortable. And I had gone over there for a couple visits the warehouse operations through some planning and concept process. But I wasn't slaughtered to go to Paris. In, in the latter part of. Well, actually the 1st of January of 1992, I get a telephone call from my boss, Howard Rowland. And Howard Rowland's in Paris. And this is on a, on a, on a Friday morning. And Howard basically says, Tom, I want you in Paris on Monday. I want you to meet with me in Balmale. And I said okay. He says, I got the travel company working on tickets and we'll see you Monday. And sure enough, tickets showed up, went to the airport, packed up a bag and I got on an airplane and came to Paris and got off in Orly Airport and found a car and drove downtown Paris and met Paul and Howard. And Howard to Paul, Paul Millay, who was, was the, the director of purchasing who had run the warehouse system here, who I work for. Basically says Tom, what I want you to do is, is, is via liaison and help John Lowick get through opening and do pretty much what you did for Epcot, okay. Here in Paris. And so that's what I did. So in turn we went. I finally left the end of April. The park April 12th is hard to believe it's only only three, four weeks from now and we're going to go through a birthday for repairs. But able to go through that, that process and got back here went to through Modern Material Handling, which is a publication associated with warehousing and that type thing came to us and wanted, and this is right at Walt Disney World's 25th anniversary, came to us one do a little short story on, on the 25th anniversary. And so, okay, so they, they came in and we showed them what we did and they got so involved in what we were doing. Then in turn this little 2, 3 page article turned into a 20 page article and was their lead publication for that year and won the awards that they, they just didn't quite understand how we could handle a city of about 250,000 people back at that time on a daily basis. So if you take everybody that's staying on property, everybody that's coming in the property as a day guest and all the food and all the merchandise and all the equipment to keep that going on a daily basis comes through the warehouse operation. So they were very impressed with that.

And even as a kid that was something that always impressed me. How this place really is a real working city that operates 24 7, 365. And the, the logistics of not just the manpower and the guests, but other things that we don't think about as guests. You know, all the things that need to populate the shelves and the stores and the restaurants is an incredible undertaking. But eventually your very long journey from, you know, 12 year old Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to coming back to Walt Disney World, you decided it's time for it to come to an end and you retire. What year?

I retired in 03. I had hired a financial advisor back when we did a living trust and he did very well and Mike Wickson and so I asked him. My 60th birthday was coming right around. June is a very active month for me. My, my birthday is in June. My company anniversary date is in June, my wedding date is in June, my retirement date is in June. Father's Day is in June. So June was a very active month for me. And I, I basically told my, you know, I'd like to retire in June. So if you ever retire from the Walt Disney Company, you want to retire from the last day of the month, okay. That way you get your pay for that week and then the first day of the next month you get your retirement check. Okay? So, so I in turn made that decision and, and so told my Boss, you know, that I had planned on retiring. And he sort of said, well, Tom, you know, what would you like as a retirement gift? And I told him, I said, you know, if I qualify, what I'd really like is a window on Main street at Disneyland and one at Walt Disney World. And so, hey, but I thought that just sort of went this way. So about two, three weeks later, he comes back and he says, look, couldn't do the Disneyland thing, but it got your window on Main street at Walt Disney World. So if you ever come into Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and you look at the cinema, my window is right above it on the right hand side.

And what does your window read?

It is Sawyer Fence Painting and proprietor Tom Nabbey Anaheim, California Lake Buena Vista, Florida So, yeah, super, it's, it's, it's one of those things. So I, I thought that was, that was, I thought that was the, the, the height, the, the la crene de creme, you know, type thing on. And my goal, every fifth anniversary of Disneyland is to be on Main street at Disneyland on July 17th. And so we were out there for the 50th anniversary. A couple previous trips the mouse paid for, but most all the trips, you know, I paid for it. And so we were there and the Disneyland Alumni Club was having a dinner dance. And so we went, I paid my admission, went to this dinner, dinner dance and we were there. And a gentleman by the name of Jim Cora, Jim Cora retired as a president of Disney International and had worked with Jim on opening here at Walt Disney World and had worked a little bit alongside Jim in Paris. And he sort of said, hey Tom, I'll see you in September. And anybody that ever worked with Jim Core, he's one of these guys that'll sort of toss out and see if, see, see if he can hook you on something that if, if he cook you, he'll play it to the hill. So I, and I said, no, Jim, you know, I'll be back here in five years, but I don't plan on being back here in September. He says, oh no, you know, you and Sully and I are going to be inducted as Disney legends. I said, oh, okay, well, you know, and, but it didn't bite on then, you know. So when I got back to the hotel room, I called my sister who was house sitting for us here in Florida. I said, is there a letter there from the studio? And she said, yeah. And I said, would you open it up and tell me what it says? And she says, oh, it's it's something about you being inducted as a Disney legend in September. And so Cora wasn't pulling my leg. Was a true thing. So. So in turn, the Disney legend program was very much Roy Disney's thing. He was just, just totally enamored in that. And at the. I think I mentioned earlier in the conversation that when, when I got inducted as a legend at the same time Peter Jennings passed away. And so Marty Sklara and Roy hosted the, the Legends luncheon and induction. And I had the opportunity to talk with Roy a little bit. I'm a sailor. Okay. And Roy's a sailor. And so we talked about sailing. And my boat's 16 foot long, his boat's 160, but, you know, you know, same thing. Yeah, you know, sailing and sailing. So in turn, that one. And it's really nice to be a living legend. The alternative sucks. But I had the opportunity. What they, what they do is, is they have a clay mold there at the ceremony and, and you do your palm prints and you sign it and then they cast a bronze plaque and then that there's a Legends Plaza at the studio and it gets hung in the studio. So. So the next trip out for Disneyland 55th, I had called the archives because I hadn't seen my plaque and asked to borrow his Legends award. And we went out to the, to the gardens and took some photos out in that area myself in my plaque, that sort of date.

You know, you have seen so much. You have done so much from, you know, being there on opening day as a guest to 24 hours later being there as a guest facing cast member in a role that you design and had created for you. You knew Walt, you interacted with Walt, you influenced Walt. You've done so much here in Wurham. You are in Paris. You're a legend. You're a member of the Disneyland Club. 55. You've seen and done so much. And of all the things, when you look back on your time with the company, is there any one thing, any one moment that you look back on most vividly? I can't say favorite because I'm sure there's so many. But most vividly or most fondly, and the one that sort of is most.

Meaningful to you working for Wedding, being Tom Sawyer? Absolutely. But, you know, I had, I had.

Because you were the only one, right?

No, they held a contest to replace me. So they had one replacement. And after that, then there wasn't any more Tom Sawyers. But working in Wed, watching things come from a storyboard concept to Reality, to build it, to watch guests actually appreciate it and, and ride on it. And that, that thing is phenomenal. You know, that was, that, that was probably the, the cream to cream. The, the making the transition into warehousing. One of the things that, the, the hardest thing was trying to get the people in the warehouse operation to feel part of the show. And what I did there is I went to the institute and we partnered with the institute and we brought people in to tour the warehouse operation because they had enamored with that just like the people from modern material handling. So we would bring people in and tour them through the warehouse. Well, I didn't do the tour in the warehouse. I in turn had the warehouse people tour the people in the warehouse. I did do a Q and A, A on it. Some of the things I do, I, once a month I, I do a Disney heritage thing for rcid. Reedy Creek Improvement District. They decided to go through and retrain all their older employees along with new employees that were coming on board. And the manager of HR for them, who's a drinking buddy of mine, asked me if I would come share my story with them. I said yeah. And that was three, three years ago. So, you know, every third Friday of the month I get to do that. I do a lot of speaking for Disney events. I do the Disney Anna fan club several times, the college program. I do it for the ambassadors. I enjoy that. Now one of the questions I normally get at the end of my presentation, and it's about an hour presentation or little longer on this one, but have you ever thought about writing a book? And so I did. So if you want to hear the real long version of the story of Tom Nabi, then you can pick up my book. It's available on Amazon.com or you can go to my website, tomnabbe.com if you want to personalize an autograph there.

And I will link to that in the show notes. And I have one last question for you because I want to sort of flip things a little bit because now you come to the parks, you come to Magic Kingdom with your young granddaughter. Give me your impression. Now, coming to the parks as a guest versus when you were here as a cast member, from sort of helping to create that magic that we talk about to experiencing it and sharing it with your own grandkid.

Well, it's, it's phenomenal. She's just, just a little over two right now and, and I'm going, you know, what is a two year old gonna know? Well, I tell you, she Knows. She knows the characters. The character breakfast is on property. She just. Jesus, loves them, eats them up. All the experiences in the park. You know, one time here and we went to Epcot. Not met, but we went down and she's, she's totally involved in Anna and, and Elsa and, and Olaf from Frozen. And to watch her, the, the, the interaction of her and Anna and Elsa down there is, Is just. And, and the kids that play those characters do an excellent job also. But to. I, I, I know now why I work where I work. So I could get my main cake pass, so I could get her in on. On a daily basis if I want to. Except for blackout dates.

Well, look at that. That happiness and that pride that you feel as a grandfather towards your granddaughter is the same thing that you, when you were being Tom Sawyer, gave to those parents and grandparents back in 1955. So, you know, as a guest, as a parent, I thank you for everything that you've done to contribute to this Disney magic that we know and love so much. And I will tell Tom you were worth the wait. You were worth waiting four years to get this interview done, because I could listen to your stories all day again. Your, your book is fascinating and filled with so many more. And I appreciate you spending time today and certainly for everything that you've done for us.

And I'm, I'm sorry you had to wait four years, but. But I've been practicing. So, so, so you got the best of the best.

Excellent, Tom. Thank you so much.

Really appreciate that. Reverend Wild that irresponsible child I tried to teach him but who can reach him? He never can be found Leaves his trash around Just won't learn and he just keeps turning away Tom Sawyer the devil's got him in tow Tom Sawyer he's grief and worrying Though he's late for supper and late for school and he's taking me for a fool I'll bet Tom Sawyer will be the death of me yet.