Many years ago, when I was in, active in the profession, there was a gentleman named Marvin Jones who was registrar at the San Diego Zoo. And Marvin was a fount of information and very knowledgeable, knew everybody in the business in Europe and in the United States. And a colleague, Ken Kawata, who was then, I believe, curator at the Staten Island Zoo, and I were talking and he said, “You know, Marvin is getting up there in years and no one’s ever talked to him about his life and it’s so fascinating and something should be done.” So we came up at the time with the idea of an oral interview and we posed questions to Marvin, and out of those questions came a book that we produced called “A Conversation with Marvin Jones.” And that was kind of the start of wanting to preserve some of the people that I jokingly say I broke bread with and had time to really get to know. And they would tell you something and you’d listen and so forth. And then later on, another gentleman, one of the lions of the zoo profession, Clayton Freiheit, who had been director of the Buffalo Zoo and went to Denver to be the director, was very well known, very avant garde. And he just was a raconteur, and, but he was very good zoo man. And he unfortunately, passed away and I was talking to some colleagues and I said, “Has anybody ever talked to Clayton about his life and his wisdom knowledge and?” “No, no one has.” And I said, “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible. Somebody should talk to these people.” It’s kinda like getting your grandma and grandpa on tape, oral or video for the grandkids who may never have the opportunity to have met them or interacted with them.
