Meeko and More...

The Ryman-Carroll event at Club 33 was very nice last weekend. Alice and I rose at 5:30 and were at the Picnic area to check in just past 6:30. We met up with Branden, who had a purple wristband, and got our wristbands - green, my favorite color, and were given an itinerary and walked through the park and into the club, saying hello to Ken Pellman, in shorts, even, in the cold. Brrr!

The brunch was quite a bit different from the usual Club 33 brunch, but was very good, and they were wonderful about keeping my coffee topped off as I nearly dozed off into it several times. The DIS had a contingent at the table next to us, and we shared our table with some nice people from Seattle, who'd braved the weather both up there and down here just to attend the event. Order forms for the regular Club merchandise were at each place on the table, and the merchandise could be picked up at the Disney Gallery at noon. There was no special merchandise for the event.

After brunch, the red group was escorted out, then the purple group (bye Branden!) and then our group.  We strolled down to the new amphitheatre in Frontierland, and Maggie greeted us and told us about her life as one of Richard Irvine's ten children, nine of whom worked for Disney, none of whom do now. She discussed working with Herb and passed around examples of his work.

We then went to Town Square, where Marty Sklar waited for us. His presentation was really wonderful, and I came with a somewhat jaundiced attitude, having heard secondhand about the Town Hall meeting that week. I love it when I'm wrong with things like this: his was the best. He spoke at length about the Ryman-Carroll foundation and the good things it does for young artists, and about the brilliant artist Herb himself was. He gave credit to the Imagineers and artists in the company who created Disneyland, passing around pictures of them and of their projects, taking special time for my favorite artist, Mary Blair, and for Marc Davis, who created so many memorable characters. He talked about the "famous fights" that Marc and Blaine Gibson would have over how the Pirates were supposed to look. He gave credit to everyone, in fact, except himself.