February 21, 2013: Go ask Alice, "Is that Snape?"

I am a middle school teacher and while is my job to teach eighth grade science, it is my pleasure to learn all sorts of things from my students. From time to time I have students who are avid readers and at one point I had a young man who read books with his mom. They would both buy a copy of a book, read the book and discuss it. This young fellow was particularly fond of a series of books about a poor orphan boy who lived with his aunt and uncle who hated him so much that they made him live under the stairs. He loaned me the first book and this was my introduction to Harry Potter. One of the more interesting characters in the books was Severus Snape, one of the professors at Hogwart’s.

Alan Rickman played Severus Snape in the movies and he was born on this day in 1946. Alan was in one of my favorite movies of all time, Die Hard, where he played the brilliant villain but there are Disney connections for him as well. Rickman was the blue caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland and Marvin in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now this blog is devoted to Walt Disney World, so without sending you to that other big park in Orlando, how can we honor Alan Rickman? Alice in Wonderland characters are prominent in Disney parades as well as the ever-reliable Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, so get to the Magic Kingdom and come out of your cocoon.

On this date in 1955, Kelsey Grammer was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Just being associated with John Ratzenberger on Cheers! would be enough reason to honor someone at Walt Disney World since Ratzenberger has been in every single Pixar feature but Grammer has a Disney pedigree of his own. The one we’ll focus on is Toy Story 2 where Grammer plays Stinky Pete, the sad, desperate villain who tries to regain his former glory by getting the gang from the show back together. Let’s ride Toy Story Mania and remember Stinky Pete just wants us to all be together.

Today is Mother Language Day. If you’re first language is something other than English, this is the day for you and EPCOT is the place you need to go. One of the coolest things about EPCOT is the fact that people who work in the different countries of World Showcase are from those countries. You can converse with them in their mother tongue and find out all kinds of cool things about their country.

Remember, your best excuse is always: waiting for your dreams to come true.