I was off that day and I came in, and at that time, you could drive right into the center of the zoo and park. And I drove in, there’s an ambulance, there’s Scott’s squad cars up at the top of the hill at the Lion House and I saw… Read More
I think he was pretty hard nosed. I mean, we had some incidents that took place and he was I think he was pretty tough. He didn’t spend a lot of time in the zoo, but when he found out about things that were going on that shouldn’t have been… Read More
Okay. So anyway, and Walker knew this animal and Walker came down, walked in the building, went up to the exhibit, the cage and started making noises, and this owl money monkey responded to him and he came back out and he said, “I want this man fired.” And I… Read More
Did you learn anything from Walker that stood you in good stead later?… Read More
(Bill sighing) Not really. I didn’t have that much contact with Walker, not when he was director. I had more contact with him and even not that much when he was writing his book. In 1958, there was a mauling of a toddler by a lion. Read More
About $2500 a year, which was not very much money. And what Ted did was he was able to convince the district government that was to their advantage to give up the zoo because it was draining money from them and put it under totally under Smithsonian. And at the… Read More
So Ernest Walker was running the zoo?… Read More
Yes, he was the– De facto. Well, I mean, he was assistant director, so he was basically in charge of hiring of getting the budget and everything and Mann was at that point almost was a really old man. He was putting informed and I think he left it up… Read More
What kind of management style did Walker have?… Read More
Who’s running the zoo, Mann or Walker?… Read More
Walker, yeah. He’s running it. Yeah, and I tell you, one of the things that was going on back then is that the National Zoo even though it was under the federal government and under Smithsonian, the salaries and operating budget came from the District of Columbia. So what Walker… Read More
I mean, I remember when I started out, I think it was with GS3 and I don’t– What does that translate to?… Read More
Now, you’re in a different level now, you’re a keeper, not a kid coming in with reptiles, did you have contact with the then director Mann?… Read More
I didn’t really have that much contact because he never really came into the zoo. I think the last time I saw Dr. Mann was right after he retired and he retired, I think, I wanna say, four months after I started. And they brought him down about, I don’t… Read More
But you never got in trouble for it?… Read More
I never got in trouble and Jean never reported us or anything like that. I mean, he took it and really good humor. When you started, the director was not William Mann, it became Ted Reed. No, it was William Mann. Read More
When you started?… Read More
When I started, yes, and Walker were still assistant director. Read More
It was definitely different. I mean, some of the stuff that we did, if we’d done it 15 years later, we probably would have been fired for it because, I mean, I don’t wanna start as far as practical jokes are concerned, but I’ll tell a couple of stories in… Read More
And at the time I’m standing there and Jack says, “echidna laid an egg.” And I said, “You’re kidding me,” and I opened the door and Jean’s coming around and I take the egg out. And I say, “This is amazing, Jean, look at this.” And Jack says, “Let me… Read More