Lasting impressions of Disney World lead to other memories

I was just observing to a friend who's currently in Orlando that I can't believe it has been 37 years - and six Presidents - since we visited the Hall of Presidents on our Disney World visit when I was 15 years old, the summer after my dad died.  I was going to share this with her, too, but it doesn't seem like the sort of distraction I'd want to have if I were on a family vacation.  (So if you're reading this from there, you might want to save it for later.)

That summer trip brings back such fond memories of youthful naivete.  Dad had died the summer before, which had been quite a shock, and there were major revelations yet to come about him.  I'd finished my freshman year in high school, and already on this road trip I'd replaced my unrequited crush on my eventual friend Therese (the next year, when we'd start being friends, I became privy to her nickname, Tree, though I've always thought she should have spelled it Theree; there's an outside hope we might get to see her in September . . . ) with an unrequited crush on my cousin in Jacksonville Beach, Sue.  This trip would serve as a dual impetus for mom to eventually tell me the truth about my paternity.  Later in the trip, visiting with Dad's family in Kansas, some of his Michigan family was visiting too, and when they met me one of them observed, "So this is Gary's boy . . . . ?"  Turns out that was either a misguided observation about mom and dad's dishonesty or a misunderstanding of which of us really was his biological child.  In the fall, emboldened with fresh hope for a relationship with my Florida cousin over whom I was still obsessing, I inquired whether she really was a blood relative.  Since she was mom's cousin's daughter, if I was really "Gary's boy" (as opposed to my mom's, I thought) then Sue would be fair game.  Stupid teenage thoughts.  Mom pretty much had to set the record straight at that point, explaining that Gary had adopted me when they'd married, a couple years after I was born, instantly chopping several years off of the length of their marriage in my mind.  Later in the school year, an old neighbor would stop by after school one day when mom was at work, and she nearly spilled the beans about dad's suicide, which prompted mom to finally come clean about the means of Dad's death.

. . . where was I? Oh yeah . . .

The Hall of Presidents was one of my most lasting impressions of WDW.  I was into history, and I thought the animatronic Presidents were amazing.  There was no Epcot yet; and mom wouldn't let me ride the new Space Mountain ride.  [She was a wee bit overprotective - before she met my stepfather, at least. I was going to observe how ironic this was until realizing that, no, he intentionally and systematically broke down her protectiveness.  (see why I wouldn't want to dump all this on an unsuspecting friend on their family vacation?)]  So the high points that I now remember most were the Pirates of the Caribbean - which I imagine is an even better attraction today given the great success of the film franchise - and the Hall of Presidents.