FROM: Mouse of Zen Monday Published Mondays

Astro Orbiter Haiku

You don't hear much buzz about the Astro Orbiter. It's a spin ride, nothing special, and has accumulated little nostalgia in all the years of its existence. Have you ridden it? JB Conway has. And he features it in today's haiku.

- by JB Conway and Bob McLain, June 27, 2011

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I used to watch The Wonder Years, a television show about growing up in the 1960s. In one of the episodes, the young protagonist rebuffs the affection of a girl in his class who isn't cool, who passes under the radar, but who (as we learn in the epilogue spoken by the narrator) grows up to become a marine biologist and live a lovely life as wife and mother.

The Astro Orbiter is sort of like that.

A version of the ride is in all five of the Disney parks. It debuted at Disneyland in 1956 under the name Astro Jets. It debuted at Disney World in 1974, along with Space Mountain. And which of those two rides gets all the headlines?

Professional wrestler Ric Flair used to brag about riding Space Mountain "all night long". Do you suppose he ever spent a slow afteroon on the Astro Orbiter?

Astro Orbiter, you've got a friend in me, and you've got a poet in JB Conway, who envisions you locking lips with tomorrow upon a celestial canvas of moons and stardust.

You remember that, Astro Orbiter, the next time you see a line light-years long outside Space Mountain.

Y'hear?

That's it for the 'Moons of June'! Next Monday, we debut the something of July. Any suggestions? These 'J' months are killing me...

If you haven't bought JB's book, Mouse of Zen, and yet you come here each week to read his haikus, why do you torture yourself? Are you a masochist? (Or maybe a mouseochist?) Don't you know you can get all the haikus at once? In the book!

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