When Lucias Clay, 72, of La Grange counts his blessings, his children are always at the top of his list.

“My two daughters – they’re my life,” Brennan said. “Every time I see a beautiful sunset or a demolition derby, I’m reminded of them.”

While Clay paints a rosy picture of paternal bliss, a recent browse through the family photo album over Thanksgiving uncovered a dark family secret.

“All our lives, Daddy talked about the time he took us to Disney World when we were kids,” said Clay’s daughter, Agnes. “When we were younger he’d pull out the photo album and we’d see pictures of ourselves wearing Mickey Mouse ears and standing next to a cardboard cutout of Goofy and Donald Duck. For some reason around the time we were becoming teenagers the photo album went missing, with only our memories of the photos as keepsakes.”

“Agnes and I were cleaning Daddy’s house for Thanksgiving,” said Clay’s youngest daughter, Ophelia. “And we found that old photo album, stuffed way at the far end of the attic. It was at the bottom of a box full of old VCRs, beepers, and an 8-track cassette of Joy Behar’s tribute to George Wallace.”

Once Clay’s daughters found the photo album, they realized why it “disappeared” for so many years.

“The entire Disney trip was a fake!” exclaimed Agnes. “There was no Goofy, no Mickey. What we were told was Epcot Center was a bouncy house set up at the opening of a used car lot. The pictures of us standing in long lines? It was taken while we were waiting to get into a Marshall Tucker Band concert in 1978.”

When asked why he faked the Disney trip, Lucias Clay minced no words.

“Just before we were going to book the Disney trip I lost a ton of money in the stock market,” Clay said. “I had a chance to buy a bunch of Ford Motor Company stock for a steal. Before the paint dried on the stock purchase, Ford Pintos started exploding like Alka-Seltzered pelicans. By the end of the year, they were giving away full-size Pintos as toys in Happy Meals just to unload them.”

Eventually, Clay recovered financially and started socking money away for his two daughters.

“I kept waiting for the right time to give the girls the money, but since they were ready to disown me after finding the faked Disney photo album, I decided the time was right,” Clay said. “They seemed very happy.”

“We were upset for about 20 seconds,” Ophelia said. “After he explained what happened and handed us those checks, we felt like we’d just landed in Disney World!”

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“Looking back on it, Daddy found a way to give us the Disney experience without having to go,” Agnes said. “Besides, how many kids got to see the Marshall Tucker Band in their prime? George McCorkle and Toy Caldwell were on fire that night.”

And what are the Clay sisters going to do with their money?

“They’re going to Disney World,” Lucias said as he stood at his stereo and dropped the needle on the debut Marshall Tucker Band album. “And the best part is I don’t have to go.”