Sitting in the outdoor dining area of what used to be The Red Wagon Inn, this writer was very conscious of Disneyland's glorious past while interviewing Mike McKiernan, a thirty-four year old aficianado of all things Disney, particularly Disneyland postcards and postcard collecting.

Everyone has their own particular ideas about what were Disneyland's "glory days," and the interview revolved around the very distant past as well as Disneyland's current fiftieth anniversary. All of the days discussed seemed to be-- past OR present-- the "glory days."

With the publication of Bruce Gordon and David Mumford's brilliant and beautiful book of Disneyland postcards and history: THE NICKEL TOUR (A Postcard Journey Through A Half Century of The Happiest Place on Earth), and e-Bay (approximately in the late '90's), Mc Kiernan became interested in collecting postcards (he currently has an inventory of over 800!). He stated that at first he collected cards which were "unique and unusual," and which could be found in Disneyland's Disneyana shop or the Disney Gallery (above Pirates of the Caribbean in New Orleans Square.) Working at Yahoo as a Search Editor, he thought that there must be people like him who'd prefer to look at the images on-line rather than in a book. The idea for his website was thus born. Where a few postcard shows occur only a handful of times every year, e-Bay is always open and Mc Kiernan could bid on cards when ever he chose to. When asked why did he want his collection on line to share with strangers, he replied that he "wanted to be the first to do it."

He then began attending the two/three larger vintage postcard and paper shows in northern California where he lives. Starting small, he began to realize just how many postcards were out there-- both "official," and non-official--and the collecting took off. At these paper shows, one sits at various vendor booths and sifts through boxes and trays of postcards. Some vendors have them categoried by Disneyland alone, some by Theme/Amusement Parks, and some by merely :"Southern California." It is in this painstaking process where Mc Kiernan has located rare and marvelous treasures of Disney's past, and by archivng the cards, he is preserving our past for ALL of us.

He collects the original 31/2"x51/2" postcards, the more recent 4"x6" size and the 5"x7" (illustrated/cartoon-style) cards. At his website: www.disneylandpostcards.com one may spend hours poring over the fruits of his labors-- nearly ten years of collecting, categorizing, organizing and filing. The sheer output of work with its attention to detail is astonishing.

Recently he completed collecting the Pre-Opening series of cards which were sold in the Park the first summer as there were no postcards of actual attractions as photographs. He has three left to acquire in the ever-elusive category of the "P-Series," (a series of cards which were the first cards produced as photographs). He claims to be willing to pay upwards of "sixty dollars for an interior shot of the Nautilus from the 20,000 Leagues exhibit," as well as for a rare one from the little-seen interior of The Art Corner in 1950's Tomorrow land. His most rare and/or valuable ones are of "Colonel Jackson's Headquarters" in Fort Wilderness on Tom Sawyer's Island (complete with wax dummies of Fess Parker and Buddy Ibsen from the "Davy Crockett" TV series, The Mermaid Lagoon (with "real" mermaids,) the Pack Mules and "George J. Keller's Jungle Killers," (a lion-taming act presented briefly in the short-lived Mickey Mouse Club Circus). At one point he was bidding "two to three times a week," on e-Bay for certain cards to fill in the holes in the collection, but now he claims to only bid "occasionally."

Gradually running out of megabytes, kilobytes and megs, he's very selective now of what goes on his site, and he updates it regularly.

When asked what his oldest postcard was, he stated that it was the first one produced by the Park, showing Walt Disney pointing to the now-famous concept map, yet when asked which were his "sentimental" favorites, he said that he virtually grew up at the Disneyland Hotel (his Hotel section is thorough, detailed, exacting and gorgeous, showing its evolution over the years) and many things, he says with regret, shown in an old Disneyland Hotel Marina card, "the underwater arcade, the paddle boats, the pool in front of the Sierra Tower, and now, 'The Dancing Waters' show are all gone." He speaks longingly of the Monorail Cafe and that wonderful "Mickey's Corner" shop in the Hotel. These memories are most dear to Mike Mc Kiernan.

Everyone is likely to have a "sentimental favorite" to look for when perusing the site (or ten or several hundred!) and it is a pleasure to know that these images, like Mell Kilpatrick's, will always exist to take us back to our long-ago pasts or to our visit to Disneyland, just yesterday.

Mike Mc Kiernan's advice to those beginning this rewarding hobby is to "shop around, first," and don't be so quick to purchase. He plans to pass his collection on to his children (when they are old enough to appreciate and enjoy them), and a future goal would be to see a series made of Then/Now cards, showing Disneyland in the past, side by side with images from today.

He claims that he may never have all of the cards in existence ("Even THE NICKEL TOUR is incomplete," he says), yet will continue collecting. Thank goodness for all of us that he will.

Jack Richardson, writer, is a lifelong Disneyland enthusiast who, besides being a former Cast Member, and a member of the Disneyland Alumni Club, is an avid collector of Disneyana, a member of The Extinct Attractions Club, and a Disneyland postcard collector as well as providing our Postcard of the Month images and articles.