Todd James Pierce and I had the tremendous pleasure last week of rescuing a two-hour long interview on tape with Joe Fowler conducted the year of his death in 1993 by Harry Wessel. This interview will appear in an upcoming volume of Walt's People, but I thought you would enjoy this short excerpt:
["Walt didn't live long enough to see us break ground in Disney World, but he used to travel all over the property with me in a jeep,” remembered Fowler. “He loved it. I remember he wanted to see how Disney World would look from the top of the Contemporary Hotel. So we got the biggest damned utility crane in Florida, and the two of us got into the bucket and they hoisted us straight up to where the lounge at the top of the Contemporary would be. I was so damn busy hanging on, hoping to get down, and he was so enthusiastic: ‘Oh, Joe, look at this! This is going to be great!’ He could visualize it all. I could see enough to realize that everything [in the plans] was properly located. Oh my, he was a wonderful man."]
["Walt didn't live long enough to see us break ground in Disney World, but he used to travel all over the property with me in a jeep,” remembered Fowler. “He loved it. I remember he wanted to see how Disney World would look from the top of the Contemporary Hotel. So we got the biggest damned utility crane in Florida, and the two of us got into the bucket and they hoisted us straight up to where the lounge at the top of the Contemporary would be. I was so damn busy hanging on, hoping to get down, and he was so enthusiastic: ‘Oh, Joe, look at this! This is going to be great!’ He could visualize it all. I could see enough to realize that everything [in the plans] was properly located. Oh my, he was a wonderful man."]
1 comment:
What a great quote. This is why I love the Walt's People series so much - I've *never* heard that little story anywhere, but look how much light it sheds on Walt and his relation to the Florida project. Since Walt died so early, it's easy to forget that he knew about the Contemporary and all those wonderful things that were built after his time. It was all in his head.
Just think... if the world could have just had him for five more years, what things we'd have seen.
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