Zoo Stories

detroitzoo1968
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

It's summer time and the living is easy! Besides books to read, DVD's to watch, and Gardens to tend; there is this beloved home of mine to clean.

1968 - And while cleaning today I happened upon this photo. Taken in the Spring of that year, it’s me (1st kid on the left) and four of my classmates on our first grade field trip to the Detroit Zoo. Other than the photo, I really don't remember that much about the day...my mother was a chaperone (probably the person behind the camera), the animals were in these cages without bars--if I remember that correctly. It was my first experience of a zoo, but not my last.

1983 - I was hired as a summer youth director by the Epworth United Methodist Church in Savannah, Georgia. It was my first experience as a church employee and my first extended visit to Georgia. I have to assume that neither are typical of either experiences, but at the time it was all I had to deal with.

The job turned out to be nothing more than a glorified baby-sitter for a mostly bunch of spoil white kids in one of America's most putrid backwaters of 19th century blue-blood hegemony....but I am starting to tell another story, so back to the zoo.

In my role as naive tour guide and recreational planner I scheduled a visit to the Columbia, South Carolina Zoo. The core audience for this day was the church's primary children. On the day of our departure we were joined by a flaming redheaded adolescent cousin of one the kids. His easy southern grin and crystal blue eyes naturally captivated me. Little did I suspect.... He turned out to be one hell of a total terror. At one point in our visit, I literally had to climb into the artificial habitat of some sort of a condor and drag him off of a faux concrete butte for his (and the bird's!) protection.

It was then that I removed my belt. I grabbed him by the back of his pants and before the assembled church group and God as my witness, I strung my belt through two loops on my pants and 2 loops through his and told him, "That's it. We're attached at the waste and this is as far as you're getting away from me again."

It was the last time I every saw that kid or his cousins at church.

1990 – The real thing: I had the pleasure of traveling to Africa. I visited the nations of South Africa and Zimbabwe, and while in Zimbabwe spent two days on Safari at Hwange National Park. I remember the drive in as the Landrover rambled along a dirt road phalanxed by herds of giraffe and zebra, while an horrific thunder storm spat flashes of lightening and rain and hail stones all around us—YES, golf ball-sized chunks of ice in the heart of Africa.

Once there, we road out to view animals on the first day. We saw huge heards of herbivores: Gnu, Impala, Grant’s Gazelle, Zebra and all animals with new borns in tow. At one watering hole we sat still and watched the most amazing heard of Elephants arrive and drink and bathe. At another point, we encountered a lone male. Apparently somewhat frisky, he quickly sprouted a fifth “leg” – and it was an honest to God LEG! In its proportions.

On the second day I participated in a walking safari and we encountered a wart hog up close and personal – the walk was cut short when our tracking of leopard turned into the Leopard’s tracking of us.

2000 – It was part of my Birthday Present. My ex- and I visited the New Orleans Zoo in late January. As zoos go, not the worst place for animals to live. As our trip went, one of my more pleasant memories was this wonderful exhibit of Louisiana flora and fauna, as well we, a Central American habitat. The primates were the worst aspect of the zoo – never an excuse for treating cousins so poorly.

2001 – For years my ex- and I planned monthly outings with his grandmother. In the summer of 2001, these excursions included a visit to the Baltimore Zoo. One of the oldest zoological parks in the United States, it was a great walking experience. The zoo part, which is to say the animal part, was less spectacular.

I remember feeling very sorry for the penguins and seals as they lethargically hung around their concrete ice berg. We spent some time around the chimpanzees who weren’t all that available or interested in us (in most zoos, it’s the primates that I pity the most). And there was this interesting prairie dog exhibit, but the prairie dogs were all as fat as Santa Claus! Chubs ready for leather bars, but hardly representative of their cousins in the wilds of Kansas and Nebraska!