Of all the characters in all the Disney films
the one I love the most is Jiminy Cricket from "Pinnochio."
My favorite scene in the movie
is when the blue fairy is saying to Pinnochio,
"Always let your conscience be your guide."
Pinnochio asks, "What are conscience?"
and Jiminy Cricket is scandalized by the question: "What are conscience!"
"What are conscience!
Conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to,
that's just the trouble with the world today."
I love the way Jiminy Cricket is always there
with a nerdy, ethical thing
just as Pinnochio's coming up with some kind of good plan.
I think of him as speaking truth to puppet.
I always wondered what it was about Jiminy Cricket
that made me love him so much
and one day it hit me.
It was because he sounds like my grandfather.
My grandfather was a very sweet and cuddly man
and I loved him to the moon and back.
But I shared him with the big, wide world.
His name was Roy O'Disney,
and together with his younger brother Walt Disney,
he came from a very humble upbringing in Kansas
and started and ran one of the most iconic businesses in the world.
Two things I remember the best about going to Disneyland
with my grandfather.
The first thing was he always gave me a stern warning
that if I ever sassed anybody who worked there
I was in deep doo-doo when we got home.
He said these people work really hard --
harder than you can imagine,
and they deserve your respect.
The other is that he never walked by a piece of garbage
inside of Disneyland
or anywhere else,
where he didn't bend over to pick it up.
He said no one's too good to pick up a piece of garbage.
In grandpa's day,
a job at Disneyland was not a gig.
A person could expect to own a home,
raise a family,
access decent health care,
retire in some security without worrying,
on just what he earned there at the park.
Mind you, grandpa fought the unions
and he fought them hard.
He said he didn't like to be forced
to do something he wanted to do voluntarily.
That was [rank] paternalism of course and maybe a tiny bit of BS.
He wasn't an angel,
and everyone wasn't well and fairly treated across the company,
something that's well-known