It's a Small World After All 

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During the summer of 1963, we joined my two uncles and their families for a Southern California vacation. It was memorable. We sailed cat-rigged boats up and down the Newport Channel, body-surfed and boogie-boarded on the frothing Pacific, had a brief side-trip to Tijuana's Frontón Palacio's Jai Alai games and sang—accompanied by my baritone uke—Peter, Paul and Mary songs along with a hootenanny crowd at a local hotspot.

And, of course, there's no way to forget that I fell head-over-heels in love with Rhonda, a girl from San Gabriel who was also there with her family. We sat for hours in an abandoned lifeguard tower, whispering sweet nothings while the moon flung its glitter across the waves.

That wasn't all; I had my very first visit to Disneyland. My reaction was nothing unique—just like everyone else, I had ever seen such an amusement park. I was dazzled by its immensity, by the amazing recreations of storybook scenes and geographical locations, and by the remarkable imagination that had created it all. Even today, there are still a few rides that are imprinted on my mind forever: Matterhorn; Jungle Cruise; The Haunted Mansion.

That was 1963.

I went back in 1968 and found that there was a new ride. It was nothing like the others.

No one could have described it as exciting—it was simply a whimsical boat ride through a world of music, with children of every race and culture singing the same song in their own languages. "It's a Small World After All."

Written in 1962 by Robert and Richard Sherman, who worked for Walt Disney as staff songwriters, and inspired by the Cuban missile confrontation, the song was created during a time of nagging fear over the prospect of nuclear warfare.

"It's a Small World" was a song with a mission. It was about searching for universal understanding, cooperation and peace. The entire ride was first manufactured in Burbank, and then shipped to the New York World's Fair. Sponsored by Pepsi, it was part of the United Nations UNICEF display, and it was an instant success—bringing millions in donations to the cause. When the fair was over, the ride was disassembled, shipped back to California and eventually rebuilt at its Disneyland site.

I'm not sure what impressed me most. It may have been the catchiness of the tune and its words—that was certainly part of it. But even more compelling, it was the glowing inspiration that we really could achieve a world wherein such a sense of cooperation and decency reigned. There was something so reassuring about the simple words, "It's a small world after all." Maybe there really was hope for a gentler world community and a realistic goal that mankind could find the elusive dream of permanent peace.

The hope persisted. So did that damned song, ringing through my head as we drove back to Utah, waking me in the early hours of morning, drowning out the words of my college professors, forcing me to sing it over and over again in my mind. The lovely little song became a form of inescapable torture. It simply wouldn't leave me alone. I sang it in the shower, I whistled it as I walked to classes and I found my inspiration reinforced each time I heard it. It was joyful, but it was also a pest.

I'm sure there's a name for those things that hijack our brains. Some have described the continuous-loop replays as "earworms," and that's a very descriptive moniker. Indeed, researchers have noted that roughly 98% of all people endure at least some of these infestations of the brain. They can go on for days, months, or even years.

Sadly, many of the "earworms" aren't nearly as pleasant as a song about world friendship. Today I am, once again, plagued with earworms. I'm constantly reminded of the misdeeds and crass words of the Trump era.

Actual quotes sometimes replay in my mind: words of disdain for America's true heroes; words of disloyalty to the fundamentals of our democracy; words of disrespect toward women; words of praise for the world's most disgusting, fascist autocrats; words that can, more often than not, be traced to bald-faced lies. Words—not reassuring ones, but words that highlight the foulest era in our nation's history.

The strange thing, truly unexplainable, is that Trump's words have created earworms in both his detractors and his supporters. They're all hearing the song of the Trump fiasco being continuously looped in their minds.

I am plagued by the earworms, the lingering evidence of our country's worst traitors—ones who hope, as our legislators and leaders, to mis-represent Americans and gnaw away at the foundations of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Sadly, the cacophony of lies rings out just like the lofty and inspiring song of yesteryear. We hear them in misleading political campaign ads (Mike Lee, take note); we hear them from the incumbents who sought to corrupt the election process; we hear them from the people who represent us in the highest halls of our democracy.

Maybe "It's a Small World" was a mere pipe dream—a romantic notion that our world could be headed to a better future. But the earworms, irritating as they could sometimes be, were a far better alternative to the tragic tunes that haunt our minds today.

You can make a difference. Remember that a vote for a candidate who has disrespected our democracy is an individual act of disloyalty to your country.

Here's hoping that America's earworms of tomorrow will be better than those from which we now suffer.

The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He resides in Riverton with his wife, Carol, and the beloved ashes of their mongrel dog.