RN: I worked the Jungle Cruise(Anaheim) as a PPT, or Permanent part time (do they still have that???) from 1978 to 1981. While I was there, we swapped out the Smith and Wesson 38s for new ones; I was told that was the first time that had been done!

JGR: Tell us how you came to find yourself piloting a Jungle Launch (in other words, why Jungle?)

RN: Well, I was looking for a summer job, and I didn't want to flip burgers! when I was in high school, a few friends worked at the park. It seems that most of them had jobs in restaurants or janitorial. Those of us who waited 'till college seemed to get the Ride Operator jobs. When I went into Casting, I told them that I'd been driving since I was 8, and thought I'd enjoy driving the parking lot tram! The interviewer obviously picked up on the fact that I'm extroverted, and the rest is History. Like a lot of my peers, the JCOs also worked Swiss Family Treehouse in rotation sometimes, and parade duty/crowd control for the two parades a night in the summers. At one point, I worked the new-at-the-time Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

JGR: When you visit the Cruise now, what are some of the major differences you see from the time period of your tour?

RN: Well, there have been huge improvements! When I worked there, the worst jobs were taking tickets in the queue, or doing the same at Swiss Family, called "tree" by the JCOs. Now, that's not done. The pre ride queue is drastically improved. Also, the tie in with the Indiana Jones ride. What I DON'T like is that the ride's much harder to see now; I believe our draw was the motion of the boats pulling up, unloading, and loading.

Back when I worked the ride, the boats rode on a set of bogie wheels on a pipe. I THINK somebody told me that that's been replaced by a couple of concrete subwalls, that contain a new bogie wheel inside them. I bet there's a lot less off-track excursions!

When I was a junior at Cal State Long Beach, I spent all my 15 minute breaks riding all the other JCO's boats, to get ideas to improve my spiel. I wound up submitting an 8 page typewritten "script update request" to the supervisors, who thanked me for it, and forwarded it on to the Studio. I was told that a revised script came out in the early 80s, incorporating a lot of our commonly used jokes.

While I was there, a few buddies of mine made the now infamous "jungle cruise movie", while being students at Cal State Fullerton, and other local universities. I'll never forget John singing "Mack the Knife" while sitting atop a zebra. Hey, Shawn- maybe we should show that at the reunion! I stayed in touch with John after I went into the Air Force for pilot training. He became an activist lawyer, as I recall.