I love love love hearing from readers about their successful nudges. Recently I got to experience another high: being asked to participate in a friend’s nudge! Here’s Ann’s story. —KGW
Text and photos by Ann Murphy
As Kathleen Guthrie Woods was gearing up for 52Nudges 2.0, I was inspired by two of her ideas: finding fun things to do and exploring the community. I thought, “Why can’t these be incorporated into Kathleen and my every-six-week lunch date?” Meeting at a new restaurant is fun and catching up is important, so why not incorporate lunch, fun, and exploring every time we meet?
Kathleen jumped on the idea of a new adventure, and we scheduled our first outing at The Walt Disney Family Museum in The Presidio of San Francisco. Since we both grew up in Southern California near Disneyland, and given Kathleen’s long association with the Walt Disney Company, it was a mutually agreed upon outing, and it didn’t disappoint.
The Walt Disney Family Museum in The Presidio of San Francisco.
My commute that morning was horrible—one and one-half hours—and if our meeting was “just a lunch date,” I might have turned around when I heard two lanes of the highway were closed due to an accident. But it was an adventure, so I kept going.
A typical San Francisco summer morning greeted us at The Presidio: chilly and fog covered, with just the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge peeking out. The museum is located in the center of The Presidio in one of the historic red brick buildings surrounding the old marching grounds.
Walt Disney persuaded Technicolor to give him an exclusive (in the cartoon field) for two years of use of their three-color process. Changed the industry!
The extremely well-curated museum greeted us with showcases of Walt Disney’s awards, including his numerous Oscar Awards beckoning us from a distance with their gleaming gold. The exhibit on the second level escorts you down memory lane, starting with Walt’s days as a cartoonist and his realization that film was the future.
There are storyboards of early drawings and, of course, the first drawings of Mickey Mouse. The exhibit takes you through the creation of most of the Disney characters: Donald Duck, Goofy, Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, etc. We were also invited to a talk by a docent on the 1954 groundbreaking process of making 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
The furniture from Walt Disney’s apartment over the fire station on Disneyland’s Main Street, USA.
The exhibit gradually descended down a ramp from the second floor to the first floor of the museum, and along the way we saw Walt’s small train that he rode on tracks surrounding the entire outside of his estate. The best part for me was the model of Disneyland, seen from the ramp above. It brought back such great memories of our frequent trips to Disneyland whenever our cousins were in town.
Our adventure did end with lunch, in the Disney café, followed by a quick trip to the gift store so Kathleen could buy Disney “Little Golden Books” for a present.
52Nudges 2.0, before it was even launched, inspired me to think beyond “just a lunch date” and explore the world beyond my comfort zone. I invite you to do the same.
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area or are planning to visit, Ann and I encourage you to check out The Walt Disney Family Museum.