The Celebration Chronicles

by Andrew Ross, Ph. D.

  Donna Hart, the only Democrat on the board, playfully described these other county schools as “bratty older sisters,” envious of the younger Celebration, and explained that a board member was like “the mother of thirty different children all competing for your attention.” Insisting that county support for the Celebration methods had always been firm, she recalled the idealistic “fire in the belly” of the Disney development team: “They had wonderful dreams, but things didn’t always work out that way after they discussed things with California, when they were told to look out for the bottom line.” Acknowledging that corporations’ involvement in schools can be dicey—“they are like guys on a date who pay for dinner and think, ‘What am I going to get out of it?’ ”—she has a different angle on corporate support of education. For her, anti-tax sentiment among voters is not a selfish evasion of the obligation to fund public institutions: “I don’t see it as a shameful resistance of people to paying their taxes. The whole system has been borne on the backs of workers. People are saying ‘We’ve paid all these taxes and corporate America has gotten fat. It’s time they paid their due.’ We’ll end up paying for it all anyway, through an increase in sale prices.”

  In the last twenty-five years, corporations have become fly-by-night entities, devastating communities when they decide to relocate in search of cheaper labor, better tax treatment, and higher profits. In the course of the corporate era, and especially during the postwar period of stable union wage employment, workers came to expect a level of infrastructural support for social and community life from large employers in town. These expectations dissolved with the cruel advent of capital flight, downsizing, and rapid restructuring. The new industrial landscape is populated by companies willing to locate only on the condition that they are handed preferential tax exemptions and wage concessions. In turn, these corporate tax breaks weaken the tax base for public education. The result is an environment—here today, gone tomorrow—in which management sees no obligation, or any real incentive, to invest in the social life of a community, and so very few do. Locally, there’s little chance that a company like Disney, with its capital fixed on the land, will uproot, but it remains the case that all such decisions are answerable to market swings and stockholder anxieties. Every page of corporate history reminds us that even the “cloud-capp’d towers” of Disney World could melt into air if the price was right. If education is to remain a matter of public trust, why hang that trust on an itinerant peddler of fairy tales?

  Like others, Candy Parker was enthusiastic about her experience with the original members of the Celebration development team—“they were on exactly the same page as us”—but regretted their departure—“we never imagined it would be turned over to managers,” referring to the shift in TCC management in the summer of 1997. The “strong trust level” she had felt was a turn of good fortune in working with individuals who had approached the task with passion and commitment. But what of the near future, and the long term, when the bottom-line managers have erased any memory of the creators’ aspirations or benign will? Should company stockholders be expected to care? What do Pepsi, McDonald’s, General Mills, and Campbell’s Soup have to gain from helping students to become broadly educated citizens as opposed to loyal consumers of their products? Nothing, nor should we expect them to. Entities geared to opening up new markets for private profit cannot and should not be expected to cater to the general welfare. Too many educators already use teaching aids and packets of materials, “donated” by companies, that are crammed with industry propaganda designed to instill product awareness among young consumers: lessons about the history of the potato chip, sponsored by the Snack Food Association, or literacy programs that reward students who reach monthly reading goals with Pizza Hut slices.11 There could hardly be a worse way of guaranteeing the public interest in education than by turning it over to corporate hucksters, or even by entrusting it to temporary corporate executives, however sympathetic, who see a way to boost the PR ratings of their employer by doing a few good community deeds. In the corporate world, allying with a well-known brand name is like hitching your wagon to the brightest star in the firmanent, at least until the next stock market swing, leveraged buyout, or disappointing quarterly statement. But public trust needs the support of earthly bodies, in an orbit that is dependable, for the long run. When a society allows public education to be dependent on lottery funds or the passing benevolence of toy manufacturers and soda producers, it has already walked away from its democratic obligations.

  THE FIRST HURRAH

  When Jackson Mumey first announced his run for the school board, few people outside of Celebration were willing to give his candidacy much of a shot. Mostly everyone paid lip service to the axiom that “you can’t get elected as an independent in this county.” But Jackson, ever big on data, had done his homework and hired a polling agency to estimate his chances. The animosity to Dee Stevens’s antics was so widespread that there seemed to be an opening for him to run. Others had seized on the same idea. Within two weeks, five candidates had declared, and Dee was having second thoughts about her own plans for reelection. In any event, she had already put her finger on what she hoped would be Jackson’s weak spot. “Where does he get his money from?” she asked. “Nobody owns me,” she added. Just before she opted out of the race, she alleged that Celebration PTSA was being “run like a political machine” on his behalf. At the next PTSA meeting, each of the candidates had a chance to stump, and Mumey made his debut speech in front of a home audience. Streets ahead of his opponents on every count—speaking skills, issue relevance, common sense, and sheer persuasion—Mumey concluded by pledging to hand over his $25,000 salary, if elected, to the county’s school advisory councils each year in the belief that board membership should be a public service and not a paid position. It was a bold move, calculated to attract the kind of media interest he needed to bring in votes. Risky, too, since it fed into the perception of Celebration as peopled by wealthy individuals who could afford to forgo a substantial source of income as if it were a peppercorn rent.

  In Celebration itself, Jackson had a mixed constituency and could not be certain of too solid backing. He was bitterly disliked by the school’s antagonists—one referred to him as an “educational thug”—and had caused a stir when his company was engaged to do SAT preparation testing for students at the Celebration School. Disney funds, in effect, had been used to pay him without the approval of the school board. In addition, his critics alleged that in his capacity as a paid liaison between the school and home buyers, he was in a position to “screen” prospective residents on the basis of their attitudes toward the school. Aside from the ancillary positions he held at the school, Jackson was perceived to be powerful because of his verbal skills. Several residents referred to his “ability to manipulate words”—the signature of the slick lawyer. In this capacity he had wielded his influence in opposing, decisively, a groundswell of support for school uniforms. In his PTSA speech, his Republican rival spoke of trying to mend the rift between Celebration and the rest of the county, a feat that Mumey would have a tough time replicating. One resident compared Jackson’s chances to “eating an ice cream in hell.” Nonetheless, the town’s establishment got firmly behind him and put up some solid backing for his campaign. He would run on an empowerment ticket, speaking to countywide concerns that the school board wielded too much power.

  Within Celebration, Jackson faced the task of persuading residents that he was not running as an advocate of the school itself. By his own admission, this was an “ugly task.” “In this town,” he confessed, “I’ve been dragged from pillar to post.” At fund-raising receptions hosted in residents’ homes, he encountered a fair share of ill will directed at the school. The goal, as he put it, was to convince “those who don’t necessarily agree about the school to wear my button in the interest of rallying around a candidate from Celebration.” In the county at large, he also sought to distance himself from the school and from Disney, though
the press would inevitably run cartoons of Celebration candidates, present and future, wearing mouse ears. Independently wealthy, he took no corporate or PAC money, and put a cap of $250 on individuals’ contributions to his $50,000 campaign—an unheard-of war chest for a school board candidate. His campaign sent out thousands of mailings, put up hundreds of yard signs, ran a battery of newspaper ads, and won hands down the endorsement wars by earning the backing of the Teachers’ Association and several powerful county figures. By the time he had collected enough signatures for a place on the ballot, Mumey had appeared in enough flea markets and shopping malls to win extensive name recognition around the county.

  But nothing could break the stigma carried by his place of residence. Anti-Celebration sentiment helped his Democrat rival win the day in the final polling. All the same, Mumey took 21 percent of the vote, the highest ever recorded by an independent in a county election. More significant were the patterns set by Celebration voters. The precinct had a little over one thousand registered voters, of whom 551 were registered Republicans and 219 were Democrats. In all the other races, Celebrationites pretty much voted along party lines. The Republican bloc, in particular, had quite an impact on one or two of the county races. In the home race, the majority of residents pulled for Jackson, but the strength of the anti-Mumey faction within town also took its toll. A substantial number of residents voted for Democrat Mike Harford, who never once set foot in Celebration to campaign. Mumey was bitterly disappointed, and sounded like an exhausted presidential campaigner: “I don’t want to put my family through that experience ever again.” Soon, however, he was being approached to run for county commissioner. His first run for office had proved that Celebration would have a colorful and not at all predictable career in local politics.

  9

  IT TAKES A VILLAGE

  The sable slave, from Georgia’s utmost bounds,

  Escapes for life into the Great Wahoo.

  Here he has left afar the savage hounds

  And human hunters that did late pursue;

  There in the hommock darkly hid from view

  His wretched limbs are stretched awhile to rest,

  Till some kind Seminole shall guide him through,

  To where by hound nor hunter more distrest,

  He, in a flowery home, shall be the red man’s guest.

  —Albery Allson Whitman, 1884, from The Rape of Florida

  The DJ is cranking out dance classics—every one a winner—but it’s slow going on the dance floor of Southern Nights on a rainy Tuesday evening. Jeff LaMendola and I are on a mission at one of Orlando’s oldest and most popular gay clubs. The first gay mixer in Celebration—a historic, though unofficial, milepost in community building—is set for Friday, February 13, and we are on the lookout for a bartender to keep everyone happy. Toward midnight, the go-go boys climb on their pedestals and start winding their waists around the booming bass and drum beats. None of the bobbing hunks Jeff asks can work this weekend, and he won’t invite the one who can because he doesn’t seem quite right for the job—too much attitude, and a little too butch. I suggest we hold out for a nonprofessional, and so we decide to stay for the Amateur Strip Contest. The winner, Rick, is surely our man. Superbuff, with a bashful smile and a level blonde tuft on his cropped head, he reminds us of Ed Harris’s John Glenn in The Right Stuff, and who better than a glamorous astronaut to please the gentlemen of Celebration? Jeff wants him to tend bar in a snug Cupid outfit, but we figure—accurately, it turns out—that Dave Eaton, our discerning host, will favor a more discreet profile for the weekend’s guests—the smattering of gay men who live or work in town, plus a swelled party list of male friends from the metro area.

  Indeed, it’s not until late in his shift at the party that Rick gets to take off his formal gear and work Dave’s kitchen bar in his black jockey shorts, combat boots, and suspenders. In the course of the evening, he has learned how to mix a martini, and we have been regaled with stories about his skills as an animal trainer, recently hired at Disney’s new Animal Kingdom theme park to train Pocahontas’s raccoons and skunks to strut in front of crowds and wave. Among the guests are Cary and Bruce, also Disney employees and Celebration’s very first gay residents, obliged finally to leave town because they couldn’t afford a house, and after their apartment had to be rebuilt when the walls collapsed. They confirm a suspicion long held among this party crowd. Disney’s gay employees do indeed group themselves in particular areas of the theme parks—in the Magic Kingdom, it’s Tomorrowland for butch men and lesbians, Space Mountain for the not-at-all butch, and, in EPCOT, the Horizons and General Motors (Ho-Mo) pavilions for everyone. Among the other guests, there’s much shoptalk about same-sex partner benefits at Disney and other area companies. Everyone in this group has stories about their dogs, substituting for the conversations about children that are obligatory in straight Celebration.

  There is a polite consensus that this will be the first of many gatherings. Jeff, the manager of the town’s antique furniture store, knows the evening has gone well, but is still miffed that several of his friends hadn’t shown up. Dave, our host, is clearly relieved to have pulled the whole thing off. This is not his first effort at community building in Celebration. As president of the Celebration Players, he has had community theater up and running since his first weeks in town. The play list has included Neil Simon one-act comedies, Ten Little Indians, Steel Magnolias, and a British sex farce, Run for Your Wife. Retired from treading the boards after a career in dinner theater and children’s TV (for a spell he held the role of Bozo the Clown for an Ohio network affiliate), Dave now owns a chain of Magic Stores on the Kissimmee strip and in other parts of the country. Described to me early on by the company communications officer as a model citizen, there was no doubt about his reasons for moving to Celebration from rural Polk County—he has “a passion,” he says, “for the town’s aesthetics.” Dave has been trying for months to coax me (a stalwart of the drama society in my college days) into the troupe, but The Fantasticks, currently in rehearsal, is not my cup of tea. Before my year was out, he successfully persuaded me to don a theatrical costume. In my last volunteer capacity in Celebration, I played the role of George Washington, leading the town’s 1998 July the Fourth parade down Market Street. Apparently, my performance was less than convincing. I overheard at least two spectators in the crowd explaining to their children, “Look, it’s Benjamin Franklin!” Another, no doubt hallucinating in the hundred degrees of midsummer heat, hailed me as Abe Lincoln.

  Dave Eaton, president of Celebration Players, raises a glass. (Photo: the author)

  July Fourth, 1998. Mike Turner debates a fine point of military history with Lise Juneman and the author (aka George Washington). (Photo: Elyse Cheney)

  At the end of the February evening’s festivities, Dave sees me to the door. It’s damp and chilly, Longmeadow is shrouded in mist, and the white townhouses off to the right in Savannah Square are a Victorian phantom from some operatic demimonde. A Gilbert and Sullivan devotee, he sighs on cue, “It’s almost like London.”

  Dave and I had discussed hosting a weekly talk show with selected residents on the town’s community TV channel. Both of us knew it wouldn’t fly. Town Hall wasn’t quite ready to risk putting Celebration’s dirty laundry on display. But we would have made a good team. In common with many residents, he had, at one time, speculated I would be writing a book like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. No doubt he secretly coveted the role of Jim Williams, the Savannah bon vivant who is tried for a crime of passion. I assured him and others that if there were a scandalous homicide, I would try to do it justice in writing. While Celebration had been physically modeled, in part, after Savannah, it did not have the Georgia town’s pedigree, nor its libertarian morals, but there was a general small-town hunger for scandal here. Besides, many residents are convinced that a nut with a gun—probably a disgruntled Disney employee—will march into town one day and open fire.

  So far, the scarie
st intrusion had been a car thief who took a wrong turn into town and hid out in the wetlands while police helicopters buzzed the skies all night. The story was quickly embellished. The felon, it was alleged, had been living in the boiler room of the school for several weeks, just a lunge away from every mother’s son. Later in the summer, the town saw its first home invasion. With one hand in his pocket, allegedly clasping a pistol, the perp held up a Lake Evalyn resident and then apologized for robbing him. True to form, the story, especially the part about the apology, ran well in the national and international press.1 But my trip to the Osceola Sheriff’s office revealed that this model community had run up quite a crime sheet in its short life span. Larcenies (bicycles, construction tools) and burglaries numbered about one every two weeks. There had been several drug-related arrests, some battery charges and attempted suicides, and a number of child abuse cases (including complaints lodged against a summer camp counselor who made a child sit in the hot sun for five minute intervals as a form of punishment). It was widely known that there had been several incidents of spousal abuse where the victims had not pressed charges. Celebration had also hosted one violent traffic death owing to road design of an interchange that links I-4 with Disney World on Celebration Boulevard. A series of accidents at the intersection culminated in the drowning of one driver in a retention pond that had claimed other automobiles catapulted from the curb.2

  PARTIES FOR THE PEOPLE

  The evening after the gay mixer saw the only other social gathering at which children were conspicuously absent. On Valentine’s Day, the more prominent residents of Celebration and the town’s many corporate friends turn out for the Red Rose Ball, the big event of the season. A lavish, black tie affair at Disney World’s Yacht and Beach Resort Club, the ball and its silent auction raise money for the nonprofit Celebration Foundation. The top corporate tables command a two-thousand-dollar tag. A volunteer worker for the evening, part of my job is to set out mementos beforehand on the tables—Oscar de la Renta perfume for the ladies and a lite jazz compilation tape for the gentlemen. It is a little awkward to circulate at this event without a date, and so most of my volunteer coworkers are drawn from the sizable population of single women (all mothers) in town. There are several single men in town, but with few exceptions, they are not all that publicly visible in Celebration and unlikely to show up here. In any event, I am also lucky enough to have a date, the sparkling Dawn Thomas, who is Celebration’s most fashion-forward dresser and gregarious soul. Formerly from Trinidad and Brooklyn, she used to run a halfway house in Orange County for violent felons before her mercurial rise in the Disney ranks from the sales staff to assistant community manager at Town Hall. Dawn, it is fair to say, has seen it all, yet she is still as buoyant as a fresh recruit.