I had a really good childhood. I was the oldest of all my siblings and I’d like to think that I was born liking animals, particularly reptiles and amphibians. And I can remember as a youngster and my mother would take me to the zoo pretty much 2 or 3 times a week. And when I got older and I was like, I guess, 8 or 9 years old, she would take me with my bucket and net out to the C&O Canal and drop me off. This was in like 1948. So I was pretty young and you wouldn’t do that today, and I’d spend 4 or 5 hours out there catching turtles and frogs and whatevers. And then she would come and pick me up and I take everything home. And then two days later when we went back out, I had to take them out and let them go and then catch other ones because my mother didn’t want them in the house.
