Well my dad tried to get me interested in natural history and he bought Hardy’s Encyclopedia of Animal History. So I was reading about gorillas and mammals and birds and little bit of everything else, so I had some bird books. He was tryin’ to spread my interest away from… Read More
What did he impart to you?… Read More
Moody Lentz was the general curator then. And Moody would like to have particularly the toads because they needed them to feed the hog-nosed snakes and he would gimme a little behind-the-scenes tour. 15-minute, 20-minute behind-the-scenes tour of the reptile house, so I got to know Moody even as a… Read More
How old were you this time?… Read More
I was probably around 10. 10, 11 years old, still in grade school. That’s your first recollection, you liked the snakes. Read More
Well I think I got specifically interested in snakes because everybody was so afraid of ’em and I became so familiar with the superstitions and that most of the facts that people thought were facts were based on misinformation. So I started out tryin’ to improve the reputation of snakes. Read More
Now what were your earliest recollections of zoos?… Read More
Well my parents, we would go to Forest Park in winter and go sleigh riding and then we’d get cold. We’d go in the buildings to warm up. The zoo was nearby. We’d go into the reptile house or the monkey house or the bird house. It was heated. Sometimes… Read More
My dad never allowed me to keep any snakes at home. But after he died, I did sneak ’em in and I hid ’em in the basement, kept ’em in the basement. My mother sooner or later became aware of it. In fact, one got loose one time and she… Read More
How did you become?… Read More
What sparked your interest specifically in snakes or reptiles?… Read More
What did your parents do for a living?… Read More
My father was a master tailor and he was managing a tailor shop in downtown and my mother was strictly a homemaker. And my dad died when I was about 13 years old and then my mother went to work at a clothing store as a seamstress. She was a… Read More
Well now when you said you were bringing snakes home, they let you kept the snakes at home?… Read More
And another teacher came by, saw me in the principal’s office. He also knew that I was a nature boy. And he came in and said, “Charlie, what in the world are you doing in the principal’s office?” And the principal said, “He’s about to be kicked outta school. We’re… Read More
Please put him on probation. Don’t kick him out. He’s a good student.” So there was a teacher, believed in me, had faith in me. And as we walked down the hall, he said, “Charlie, keep your nose clean. You don’t have to report me. Just stay outta trouble and… Read More
She was also my graduation partner from high school. We both ended up going to Harris Teachers College which was a teachers college in St. Louis. The only state school that we could afford to and we went two years there and got our two-year degree. And so I’m the… Read More
I would bring a lotta snakes back and bring ’em on my front porch and have all the kids in the neighborhood, I’d give ’em demonstrations. Because most of the kids hated snakes, were afraid of ’em and I was always tryin’ to improve the snakes’ reputation, so I’d be… Read More
I thought he’d help me identify it. He was deathly afraid of snakes. Kicked me outta class. Told me to go out, get rid of the snake. I had it in the sack of coffee can. I didn’t know what to do with it. But there was this young lady… Read More
That was Marilyn, my wife. I put the snake in her locker and I knew her locker was never locked and some of her girlfriends shared her locker. And so I waited around and sure enough when she came with her girlfriends to go to the locker, she opened up… Read More