Interview 30880 – Caption Index: 57
Now later you, you move up to zookeeper three. Read More
Now later you, you move up to zookeeper three. Read More
Yep. Does that mean more responsibilities?… Read More
And was that the road to your career you thought?… Read More
Yeah. You know, there was zoo really needed a weekend person. Okay. Because it is, you know, union Zoo. And they needed a union person to work 12 hour days on Saturdays and Sundays. Okay. To just basically do the afternoon work, kind of be the live body there in… Read More
And so, I mean, I was the only zoo personnel on the grounds. And, you know, you gotta milk a cow every 12 hours. So the morning keeper would milk the cow at seven o’clock and then I would milk the cow at seven o’clock in the evening before I… Read More
We had a popcorn machine, you know, and prepackaged candy and those kinds of things. Then we really went uptown and got a cotton candy machine, you know, and the, the coke dispensing machines, you know, things like that. There was this, you know, those really tacky metal concession stands… Read More
And, and you were selling, what were you selling?… Read More
That was part-time or full-time?… Read More
Or I had to go in with spider monkeys and clean them out and things like that. You know, it was just not very, a very impressive zoo at all. Who was the director of the zoo That at that time was Craig McCowen. And he had started as a… Read More
Oh, that was, that was weekends. ’cause I was just a 16-year-old kid. Yeah. Read More
Old WPA chain link boxes along that, you know, that, that Old Lion house, I mean, we’re talking chain link boxes with very heavy chain link that housed adult bears. Okay. Concrete slab chain link boxes. You just hose it down with a two inch fire hose or the monkey… Read More
Aside from the WPA building, what kind of zoo did you find?… Read More
Right. You know, behind the head, support it just Right. Transfer it over into a little holding area. Did that with the other one, cleaned it out, put it all back together. And he, he was, you really are stubborn. I mean, he, he couldn’t dissuade me at all. And… Read More
Boy, I was making big money working. I got to work at the zoo. I wasn’t taking care of animals, but I was at the zoo doing concessions. And so that was so important for me to be making money and working at the zoo, even though I wasn’t doing… Read More
He says, oh yeah, you should go out and help Charlie out in the goat area right now. Well, he knew that Charlie had, pardon me, a deceased goat in one of the barns out there that he had a haul out of the barn. And he was sticking me… Read More
He couldn’t. And I said, does you know any other volunteer work?… Read More
This was back in the seventies when everything was wild caught back in the seventies. Nasty, wild. Caught with big O teeth on him. And he would say, clean that out. He said, I’ve never handled that. I’m like that, figure it out. I said, okay, I’ll figure it out. Read More
So picture the old ancient WPA zoo building Lion house stone, the cages upstairs, you know, the cage with the chimpanzee in the corner and the cage. That’s, you know, eight by eight by eight. Okay. And the concrete steps that go down past the, the chimp cage and the… Read More
My mom would take me to the zoo. I’d have them let me into the basement. I’d take, I changed the water and clean it all, scrub it all out and everything. And just kept doing that. He could not dissuade me from volunteering at the zoo. Okay. Read More
They didn’t no volunteer program. I was annoying. I was annoying to him. He didn’t wanna put up with me in any way, shape or form. And then the Northern Indiana Herpetological Society, the guys, we convinced them to let us put a display in the window of the Lion… Read More