Follow Here To Purchase A Disney Childhood: Comic Books to Sailing Ships - A Memoir

Author: Cathy Sherman Freeman

Publisher: BearManor Media

ISBN: 1-59393-682-6

Brought up in Southern California, Cathy Sherman Freeman has had a very interesting life and she explains it well in her memoir, A Disney Childhood ~ Comic Books to Sailing Ships.

This one hundred and seventy page book includes over ten pages of black and white family photographs along with table of contents and index. It has a cheery blue cover with photographs and a sand castle. The reader easily recognizes both the title and each chapter heading having the same font as Walt Disney Studios. The book itself is written in small nine or ten size font and may be harder to read for some.

Cathy starts the book off with her first memories of growing up with her parents and three brothers in Los Angeles. Since her father worked for Disney Studios, in charge of comic books, she correlates many of her childhood stories to his antics, written words and designs. The first half of the book idealizes a wonderful family upbringing that many of us baby boomers can easily relate to during the 1950s and 1960s.

The book takes a darker, melancholy turn when her father is diagnosed with a rare type of cancer involving tumors that eventually take his life. The family presses on by buying a sailboat and sails to Hawaii, only to have it sink halfway. Although Cathy is not on the yacht when rescued, this point is pivotal to her life.

The second half of the book is virtually about Cathy growing up during the awkward stage of a young adult though college years when every step is second-guessed or considered. Every trip she takes, every encounter with the opposite sex, every minor meal seems to be mentioned. Finishing up college she gets her first job in the real world, meets her husband and thinks life is now “happily ever after” just like the cartoon characters her father merged into her upbringing.

But life does not always go smoothly and Cathy, now in her fifties, has to deal with the similar cancer that her father has. Although she mentions no faith in a Superior Being, she feels writing this book helps her reconnect and remember her father, mother and brothers and the interesting childhood she had.

The reason I choose to read this book was because it had mentioned growing up in Southern California. Being born and raised there, I could relate to many of her stories, from the neighborhood block games and swimming at the beach, to the 1971 earthquake, driving my father’s Triumph (yes, always breaking down) or sailing to Catalina (ironically my father was in the 1975 Transpac race too). It was nice to go down memory lane with her and I wish her the best.