So you applied for then a job at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Okay. And having been burned already, I wanted, you know, here we are and again, park department, and the Oklahoma City Zoo. Every zoo, I guess, has an angel. And in San Diego it was Dr. Wegeforth. Supposedly… Read More
Did a good job, did a great job. It was his first mistress, as I said. Thomas was, took Jillian Frazier’s place, he was at Denver. Read More
So I was sort of a front man for the society. Yeah, I’m sure I mean, there’s no doubt in my mind. I mean, I got along great with the society. And they were delighted with, you know what we’d done. We had to do an awful lot of work. Read More
Now, you wanna go to Oklahoma City?… Read More
You became director of the Portland Zoo?… Read More
No. Never did. Never did. It was of the society. I would’ve been if I’d wanted to be, and if we had been successful, but we were successful. But I left probably two weeks before the city signed the contract to turn the zoo over to the society. And it… Read More
And so I went up there and did that. And then in with the zoo conference was in Oklahoma City the next year. And the society at Oklahoma City was asking for applicants. And I applied for Ogilvy’s job that he had left. There had been the problem at Oklahoma… Read More
Or do you wanted to switch to Oklahoma City?… Read More
No, no, but you were, you became… After you, the Portland Zoo Society took over. Yes. Read More
And I was hired as a director of the society to prepare this presentation to the city, and sell them on it and make the transition. That was a very politically loaded job. And the commissioner of parks was really, didn’t wanna, same old thing. it was turf battle, but… Read More
And it was quite a feat. Jack Marks was the zoo director, and he was having an awful lot of problems. It was a bittersweet thing. I mean, I needed a job and I wanted to get that done. And I told Jack, I said, “Jack, I’m just gonna be… Read More
And we caught a, do you know what a Cantil is?… Read More
And delightful guy, he had talked, he loved zoos. And he’d gone to the Bronx Zoo, and apparently Bill Conway took him to lunch, took him to dinner, or vice versa. Anyway, they had a very good relationship. And he said, “You know, you,” oh and Mason. What Mason wanted… Read More
A Mexican moccasin. I caught one of those in there. That scared the shit out of me, because they’re very deadly. Neurotoxic, they’re very neurotoxic. Then, but we had… I finally began to come around. And there was a medical doctor, excuse me, a professor. He was a biochemist at… Read More
I mean, he kept moving up. Finally, he was our public services manager, and did a good job. And we made a lot, he made us a lot of money. Ernest went to, was at Fort Worth. When I left there, he… I went to Chámeza as part of a…… Read More
The first consult with State Department was an amateur. And he went up there and dredged, discovered it, so to speak. So they pumped the thing, it went down about 10 feet, it was about 40 feet in deep. And then next day they kept pumping, and it went down… Read More
It’s a sacred, it’s part of the Mayan group there. He wanted me to go down there. And he knew, I mean, I needed, I was in deep depression. So Ernest and I went down there. We caught iguanas, we caught some snakes, and we helped with the… First, they… Read More
How did that happen?… Read More
Well, I was in deep depression for about, after leaving Fort Worth Zoo. And in fact, what’s his… Ernest Hagler, I had hired him as a hamburger cook. He’s told this story many times, but I ran the ad on it, we were gonna take over the public services in… Read More
They were either winos, or… Cooks are very, very undependable in certain respects. And so I ran this ad and Ernest applied. He was about 18, I think. He said, “Well, what do you want to know?” And I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, I want a hamburger. Now… Read More