The Original American Bandstand

During our recent and wonderful California vacation, we stopped at one of our favorite places: Roger's Gardens, a nursery in Newport Beach. Calling it just a nursery is an injustice. It is an attraction unto itself. While spectaular any time of the year, it is decked out for Christmas, and mobbed with people at its annual after Christmas sale.

For all the times I have been to this place, I never noticed that Roger's Gardens was now the home of the original Disneyland Bandstand. How had I missed seeing it all these years? This bandstand is the very one that used to first sit in Town Square at the opening of the park, later moved to Frontierland in a place now part of New Orleans Square! It was eventually retired from the park and purchased by the Gardens in the 1970s.

This little piece of history is just another reminder of how Disneyland is so much a beloved and honored part of Southern California. Since the park's opening in 1955, citizens of the area have moved from the earliest stages of childhood to middle age, and working for the Mouse has almost become a rite of passage for many. What a nice surprise to find one more memory in a place I least expected to find it.

(Photographs copyright Mark Taft.)