Interview 5420 – Caption Index: 64
How easy were animals to acquire when you started?… Read More
How easy were animals to acquire when you started?… Read More
Well when I was out in the pet business, there was a tremendous amount of exotic animals available from dealers that were supplying zoos and pet shops. Because at that time, the concept was the forests, the jungles had to be tamed. There was a demand for sugar, sugar cane. Read More
And I was tryin’ to figure out how I’m gonna send three kids to college and how I’m gonna educate ’em and pay their medical bills. So I went out to the zoo, talked to Marlin Perkins. There was an opening as a beginning reptile keeper in the snake house. Read More
Let’s back up. We’ll get to that. Lemme back up and ask you about your animal business, the exotic animal business. You started with fishes. You said- Tropical fish at 200. Read More
or you just knew they would sell?… Read More
They thought it was pretty funny. So I gave a talk about they can’t see very well. They see movement. They don’t see much more. They don’t hear very good. They don’t have any ears and they use their tongue for sense of smell, so it’s constantly going out. When… Read More
At the end of my lecture I said, “Now if you’d like to touch a snake, you don’t have to. I have a very tame boa constrictor. He’s been touched by thousands of students and you’ll have a chance to touch this.” And so I stood by the door and… Read More
And so the woman that invited me I told her, I said, “I hope that one gray-haired lady. She took notes all through my whole talk, but then she left early.” I said, “I hope I didn’t offend her.” She says, “You know who that was?” I said, “No.” She… Read More
Well when we got outta the army, we came home in a car. We had a ’50 Ford. I had my wife, a three month old baby, a five-foot boa constrictor, a collared lizard, a cockatiel, a parakeet, a pet ground squirrel, a pet jackrabbit, a box of kangaroo rats. Read More
It was called Modern Aquarium & Bird Shop and I featured ’bout 200 varieties of tropical fish, canaries, parakeets. Ultimately I added parakeets, parrots and even a few monkeys once in a while. But I had a collection of snakes in the backroom. And I had so many people going… Read More
But I also was a little bit of a ham and I told you I used to give talks on my front porch. Well I also gave talks to boy scout troops, girl scout troops, PTA meetings. And I had school groups come to my pet shop and I’d give… Read More
So I told ’em that snakes really are very superstitious. They’re afraid of people. They hate people. Every time they see people, they throw rocks at ’em. They hit ’em with sticks. Snakes really go crawling down in their hole in great fear and then they go to sleep and… Read More
She’s put up with a lot over 63 years, almost 63 years. After you get out of the army, you’re married. Read More
What do you do next?… Read More
And I gave several lectures at the zoo at Fort Bliss at the army post. So that was further my lecture circuit. Made my military career a lot more fun, a lot more interesting than just going out on bivouac all the time with the guns. Now this was the… Read More
So tell me, what were you feeling?… Read More
You’ve never handled poisonous snakes before. Well I had caught copperheads before. I had caught smaller venomous snakes, copperheads. But in fact, we were in a car when the rattlesnake crossed the road and I jumped out and I pinned it down with a snake hook and then called for… Read More
He wanted to see a rattlesnake too. So it turns out that they wanted me to start training. GIs are being shipped, particularly officers being shipped over to Korea on snakebite prevention identification of venomous snakes. But I did go to the El Paso Zoo. Jerry Tordt was the operator… Read More
But he didn’t have any black. He didn’t have any green. He was really glad to get ’em. So he took the snakes, but he gave me a five-foot boa constrictor and a couple other snakes in exchange. So I came home, I didn’t have the rattlesnakes, but I had… Read More
How do I identify harmless from venomous snakes?… Read More