Lifestyle

When my mom died suddenly, there was only one place to mourn: Disneyland

Published

10 months ago

March 23, 2025

When my mom died suddenly, there was only one place to mourn: Disneyland

My mother, Donna, died unexpectedly earlier this month. On a recent Tuesday morning, she got up as normal, and even went to the salon. That evening, she was in the hospital. Thirty-six hours later, she was gone. These have been among the most difficult weeks of my life.

I spent the first half of March at home near Chicago to grieve with my family and will likely be visiting often throughout the year to continue the process. I’ve never liked the past tense — grieved — as that implies a conclusion to something that changes us, alters our course and continues to define us. There is no neat bow for a box that can be comfortably closed and compartmentalized — here lies memories of a loved one.

And yet we survive, hopefully with something learned.

Upon returning to my adopted residence of Los Angeles, I did what I always do when down: I spent time with my cat, listened to records and then visited Disneyland, the so-called happiest place on earth. Pirates of the Caribbean was always my family’s first stop, and when I went on the ride, I tried to recall family trips — of my parents rushing to the attraction and of my brother attempting to take flash-free pictures, letting the calmly swaying boat take me back to an earlier, more uplifting time. But I mostly spent the day attempting to absorb the atmosphere. My mind needed happiness and joy, and environments that aim to comfort.

Like many in America, I grew up with parents who devoted the bulk of their vacation time to Disney’s theme parks. I’ve kept up the tradition — I write about theme parks for a living, but I also go to Disneyland often in my free time. So much so that one time later in life my mother even questioned it, perplexed by my desire to re-pilgrimage the park in times good or bad. Job promotion? Off to Disneyland. A breakup? Disneyland again. The recent devastating fires that struck our region? Disneyland was there for me.

The author at a young age with his mother, Donna, at Walt Disney World’s Epcot in the 1980s.

(The Martens Family)

“I wonder what we did to you that makes you go there so often,” my ma said a few years back on the phone while I sat in the lobby of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. I didn’t really answer — I laughed, probably sighed — but in hindsight, I wish I had been a bit more talkative. I would have reminded my mom of what she did, because in Disneyland I saw many of the lessons she attempted to impart.

So today, Ma, I’ll tell you what you did that makes me go to Disneyland so often. You instilled in me a belief in goodness. You inspired in me optimism, that I could and should do whatever I want and I am capable of achieving my goals. And somehow — despite all the worrying, and yes, my mom worried a lot — there was an idea that things would work out in the end, no pixie dust needed. She told me in early March that she hoped she lived long enough to read my first book, believing that goal of mine was an inevitability. That book will be dedicated to her.

My mom inspired in me optimism. Despite all the worrying, there was an idea that things would work out in the end, no pixie dust needed.

— Todd Martens

My mom never tired of my crazy dreams. When I said I wanted to be on “Saturday Night Live,” she drove me to weekly improv classes at Second City. And when I said I maybe wasn’t funny enough to be on “Saturday Night Live,” we switched to acting classes. And when I was tired of making errors in Little League, my mom encouraged me to maybe think about something else. I was scared to. My mom recognized my early tendency to avoid confrontation, and I was afraid my dad would be upset. But my mom sat me down and carefully explained what to say and how to be honest and express what I wanted. My dad, of course, wasn’t upset.

It was in moments such as these that this fairy-tale-loving kid saw my mom’s hopes and imagination. I’ve long believed we don’t go to theme parks to escape the world so much as to help make sense of it, for in Disneyland we see our cultural narratives and stories reflected back to us. An attraction such as Snow White’s Enchanted Wish isn’t simply about a happily ever after; throughout, we see hard work, perseverance and unexpected tragedies. What’s more, its recently refreshed ending centers Snow White’s reliance on community rather than her magical husband, and argues that true love comes only after we’ve put in the time and effort.

Alice in Wonderland takes the unpredictability of life and gives it a Technicolor whirl, assuring us our nightmares are really just dreams. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride throws us deep into our vices in a statement of our own agency. It’s a Small World, via its whimsy and childlike wonder, makes clear we’re not really all that different, rendering the divisions and hate in the world temporarily meaningless. Pirates of the Caribbean shows the ways in which greed and gluttony turn us into caricatures, while the Haunted Mansion finds frivolity in the afterlife, reminding us to enjoy our time while we’re here.

The author, Todd Martens, left, and his mother, Donna, at a recent wedding in Chicago. Donna died unexpectedly this month.

For at Disneyland, exaggerations are the norm, and if we let ourselves live in these abstracted worlds, we can sense their heightened emotions. And what I admired most about my mom, who worked most of her life as a preschool teacher, was both her ability to feel everything deeply and find new ways to spin what was happening around her. When my friends and I broke a small vase by hitting Wiffle balls inside the house on a rainy day, she didn’t scold. She suggested we switch to hitting a dust rag around the room, instead. Thus, Dust Ball was born.

One thing I’ll never forget is the way in which any global conflict when I was younger would pain her. She had a deep-rooted fear that war would lead to a draft and my older brother would be called into service. As a young child, I wasn’t aware that she had earlier lived through such moments with my father, nor did I fully understand what a draft was. I just saw my mom needed a hug.

As I got older, I saw this moment for what it was. I saw it as a sign of someone who cares, deeply. Someone who feels, immensely. Someone who fantasizes, brilliantly. I saw imagination. I saw concern. And I saw love. I also saw a way to look at life — to dream, to fear, to wonder, to hope, and when someone asks what’s wrong, to tell them and to accept that hug.

And so it was that I found myself at Disneyland just 48 hours after returning to L.A. I partly wanted to see some familiar faces. I also wanted to bask in the eternal power of fairy tales. All of the park has lessons to impart, even Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, where tales of good and evil are stand-ins for the haves and the have-nots — the pure rugged and close to nature while the oppressors are obsessed with image and mechanical and technological artifice.

I also just wanted to remind myself of those parental life lessons. Among the items I brought back to L.A. was one of my mom’s adult coloring books, a gift from my father that I placed on my coffee table and will forever cherish. I’ve thumbed through it daily since returning, smiling at her love of art and dedication to the coloring craft, but also to remember that every day I’ll have my mom’s guidance.

And that means to embrace, to worry, to wonder and to daydream. Because that is how we never stop living. And my mom will not stop living with me.

Lifestyle

Sunday Puzzle: Pet theory

Published

7 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

On-air challenge

Today’s puzzle is called “Pet Theory.” Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word start starts PE- and the second word starts T-. (Ex. What walkways at intersections carry –> PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC)

1. Chart that lists all the chemical elements

2. Place for a partridge in “The 12 Days of Christmas”

3. Male voyeur

4. What a coach gives a team during halftime in the locker room

5. Set of questions designed to reveal your traits

6. Something combatants sign to end a war

7. Someone who works with you one-on-one with physical exercises

8. Member of the Who

9. Incisors, canines, and premolars that grow in after you’re a baby

10. Nadia Comaneci was the first gymnast to score this at the Olympics

11. What holds the fuel in a British car

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge was a numerical one from Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the website mathpuzzle.com. Take the nine digits — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can group some of them and add arithmetic operations to get 2011 like this: 1 + 23 ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 – 8 + 9. If you do these operations in order from left to right, you get 2011. Well, 2011 was 15 years ago. Can you group some of the digits and add arithmetic symbols in a different way to make 2026? The digits from 1 to 9 need to stay in that order. I know of two different solutions, but you need to find only one of them.

Challenge answer

12 × 34 × 5 – 6 – 7 + 8 – 9 [or] 1 + 2 + 345 × 6 – 7 × 8 + 9

Winner

Daniel Abramson of Albuquerque, N.M.

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge comes from listener Ward Hartenstein. Think of a well-known couple whose names are often said in the order of _____ & _____. Seven letters in the names in total. Combine those two names, change an E to an S, and rearrange the result to name another famous duo who are widely known as _____ & _____.

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, January 15 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.

Lifestyle

Paul Gripp, one of the last great orchid explorers and hybridizers, dies at 93

Published

8 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Paul Gripp, one of the last great orchid explorers and hybridizers, dies at 93

After retirement, Paul Gripp still visited the nursery often, helping with weeding, as he’s doing here in this file photo, or just talking with customers.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Orchid expert Paul Francis Gripp, a renowned orchid breeder, author and speaker who traveled the world in search of unusual varieties for his nursery, Santa Barbara Orchid Estates, died in a Santa Barbara hospice center on Jan. 2 after a short illness. He was 93.

In a Facebook post on Jan. 4, Gripp’s sister, Toni Gripp Brink, said her brother died “after suffering a brain hemorrhage and loss of consciousness in his longtime Santa Barbara home. He was surrounded by his loving family, day and night, for about a week in a Santa Barbara hospice before he passed.”

Gripp was renowned in the orchid world for his expertise, talks and many prize-winning hybrids such as the Santa Barbara Sunset, a striking Laelia anceps and Laeliocattleya Ancibarina cross with rich salmon, peach and magenta hues that was bred to thrive outside in California’s warmer climes.

In a 2023 interview, Gripp’s daughter, Alice Gripp, who owns and operates the business also known as SBOE with her brother, Parry, said Santa Barbara Sunset is still one of the nursery’s top sellers.

A vibrant orchid with salmon and peach-colored petals and a raspberry and deep-yellow throat.

Gripp was a popular speaker, author and avid storyteller who talked about his experiences searching for orchids in the Philippines, Myanmar (then known as Burma), India, the high Andes, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, New Guinea and other parts of the world, fostering exchanges with international growers and collecting what plants he could to propagate, breed and sell in his Santa Barbara nursery.

“Working in orchids has been like living in a dream,” Gripp said in a 2023 interview. “There’s thousands of different kinds, and I got to travel all over to find things people would want. But the first orchid I found? It was in Topanga Creek, Epipactis gigantea, our native orchid, and you can still find them growing in [California’s] streams and canyons today.”

Gripp was “one of the last orchid people who went looking for these plants in situ — where they occurred in nature,” said Lauris Rose, one of his former employees who is now president of the Santa Barbara International Orchid Show and owner of Cal-Orchid Inc., a neighboring nursery that she started with her late husband James Rose, another SBOE employee who died in January 2025.

These days, Rose said in an interview on Thursday, orchids are considered “something to enhance the beauty of your home,” but when she and her husband first began working with Gripp in the 1970s, “they were something that totally captivated your interest and instilled a wanderlust spirit that made you want to explore the species in the plant kingdom, as they grew in nature, not as produced in various colors from laboratories.”

She said Gripp’s charm and self-deprecating demeanor also helped fuel his success. “People flocked for the experience of walking around that nursery and learning things from him,” Rose said in a 2023 interview.

“Paul lectured all over the world, teaching people about different species of orchids in a very accessible way,” Rose said. “He didn’t act like a professor. He got up there with anecdotes like, ‘One time I climbed up this tree trying to reach a plant in another tree, and all these red ants infested my entire body, so I had to take off all my clothes and rub all these ants off my body.’ A lot of people’s lectures are boring as dirt, but Paul could command a room. He had charisma, and it was infectious.”

Gripp was born on Oct. 18, 1932, in Greater Los Angeles and grew up in Topanga Canyon. He went to Santa Monica College and then UCLA, where he earned a degree in horticulture, and worked as a gardener on weekends, primarily for Robert J. Chrisman, a wealthy Farmers Insurance executive and hobbyist orchid grower who lived in Playa del Rey.

After college, Gripp served a stint in the Navy after the Korean War, and when he got out, he called Chrisman, his old boss, who invited him to come to Santa Barbara and manage the orchid nursery he was starting there.

A man in a blue jacket and cap bends over a table of sprouting young orchids.

The nursery opened in 1957, with Gripp as its manager, and 10 years later, after Chrisman died, he purchased SBOE from the Chrisman family.

In 1986, Gripp and his then-wife, Anne Gripp, divorced. In the settlement, Gripp got their cliff-side Santa Barbara home with its breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, and his former wife got the nursery. When Anne Gripp died, her children Parry and Alice inherited the nursery and took over its operation in 1994, Alice Gripp said in 2023.

Gripp officially retired from the nursery, but he was a frequent helper several times a week, weeding, dividing plants, answering customer questions and regaling them with his orchid-hunting stories.

“Paul loves plants, but what he loves most in life is teaching other people about orchids,” Alice Gripp said in 2023. “He chats with them, and I try to take their money.”

Gripp wasn’t a huge fan of the ubiquitous moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) sold en masse in most grocery store floral departments, but he was philosophical about their popularity.

They’re good for indoor plants, he said in 2023, but don’t expect them to live very long. “A house is a house, not a jungle,” he said, “so there’s a 99% chance they’re going to die. But they’re pretty cheap [to buy], so it works out pretty good.”

“He used to say, ‘I’m an orchid man. I love every orchid equally,’ and he does,” his daughter said in 2023. “I don’t know if he would run into a burning building to save a Phalaenopsis from Trader Joe’s, but he told me once, ‘I’ve never thrown out a plant.’ And that’s probably true. When he was running things, the aisles were so crammed people were always knocking plants off the benches because they couldn’t walk through.”

Gripp is survived by his children and his second wife, Janet Gripp, as well as his sister Toni Gripp Brink. In a post on the nursery’s website on Jan. 5, the Gripp family asked for privacy.

“We are still very much grieving Paul’s sudden passing,” the message read. “If you would like to share your memories of Paul, please send them by mail or email for us to read in the days to come. We will welcome your remembrances and gather these into a scrapbook to keep at SBOE. We appreciate your understanding of our need for peaceful reflection at this time. In the coming weeks, we will announce our plans for honoring and remembering Paul with our orchid friends.”

Lifestyle

Veteran actor T.K. Carter, known for ‘The Thing’ and ‘Punky Brewster,’ dies at 69

Published

19 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Veteran actor T.K. Carter, known for ‘The Thing’ and ‘Punky Brewster,’ dies at 69

Actor TK Carter arrives for the premiere of “The LA Riot” at the Tribeca Film Festival, Monday, April 25, 2005, in New York.

Mary Altaffer/AP

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Mary Altaffer/AP

DUARTE, Calif. — Veteran actor T.K. Carter, who appeared in the horror film “The Thing” and “Punky Brewster” on television, has died at the age of 69.

Carter was declared dead Friday evening after deputies responded to a call regarding an unresponsive male in Duarte, California, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police did not disclose a cause of death or other details, but said no foul play was suspected.

Thomas Kent “T.K.” Carter was born Dec. 18, 1956, in New York City and was raised in Southern California.

He began his career in stand-up comedy and with acting roles. Carter had been acting for years before a breakthrough role as Nauls the cook in John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic, “The Thing.” He also had a recurring role in the 1980s sitcom “Punky Brewster.”

Other big-screen roles include “Runaway Train” in 1985, “Ski Patrol” in 1990 and “Space Jam” in 1996.

“T.K. Carter was a consummate professional and a genuine soul whose talent transcended genres,” his publicist, Tony Freeman, said in a statement. “He brought laughter, truth, and humanity to every role he touched. His legacy will continue to inspire generations of artists and fans alike.”