Summer 1975

In the summer of 1975 I worked for the City of Aspen cleaning and maintaining the downtown mall.  This was back when it was new and the streets still looked like streets with the addition of large planters haphazardly spread about.  My work included picking up Wagner Park after the events of the prior day.   I always got to the mall around 6:30am and did the Wagner Park work first.  That summer every morning was greeted by an “older” lady and her standard poodle named Clancy.  The dog would run around the park and stop every couple of steps and eat something from the grass.  This went on a week or so until curiosity finally got the best of me.

One morning I went up to the lady to ask what it was that her dog was doing.  Much to my surprise she told me her dog loved chewing gum and was looking for it in the grass.  Apparently a lot of people chewed gum in the park as this dog seemed to have an endless supply.  This ritual went on every day all summer long.  As the summer went by I got to know this lady and her dog, Clancy.  The lady was Cassie Clemmons and she along with her husband owned one of the Fasching Haus condominiums.  It was their vacation and summer home and it was just blocks from the park.  As it turned out, Cassie was married to Larry Clemmons who was well known for such Disney Classics as “Jungle Book”, Winnie the Pooh cartoons and movies and many more.  Prior to that Larry was well known for radio shows in the 1940’s and 50’s before going to work for Walt Disney.  Cassie was famous in her own right as one of Ziegfeld’s girls from the 1930’s.

Our friendship lasted all summer long and into the years that followed.  On occasion when Larry came to town I got the opportunity to visit with him as well.  I remember on one visit that Larry drew Mickey Mouse on my stomach in full color.  A year later in 1976 a childhood friend and I traveled to Los Angeles for a three day stay at Disneyland.  The two of us saved for two summers to make this trip without our parents.  We stayed in the Anaheim Grand Hotel just across the street from the park.  Larry picked us up at our hotel to take us to the Buena Vista Studios for a personal tour which included a tour of Walt’s office and the stage where “The Black Hole” was being filmed.  We were scheduled to meet Mickey Rooney, but as it turned out he had left the studios for the day.  Larry also gave us a behind the scenes tour of Disneyland which included seeing the three secret locations that Walt used to entertain guests.  We went to the future location of Space Mountain which was under construction at that time.  As Larry left us for the evening, he gave us each a bundle of “E” tickets which lasted us the remainder of our stay.

Over the years, I lost touch with Larry and Cassie but their memory lives on.  Larry passed away in 1988 and I am not sure of Cassie’s fate.  Larry, Cassie and Clancy, thanks for being a part of Aspen’s character and history.