I’ll go get it if you wish.” And they said, “No, don’t get it.” And then somebody said, “What time do you think he ought to leave the zoo?” And I said, “In 30 minutes.” He called the zoo and fired the guy on the phone. Frank. Speak louder, dear. Read More
Not a master plan. First I needed to get rid of some people that shouldn’t be there. Give me just a minute. No problem. I went to a meeting, a luncheon meeting, with the Parks Commission. I walked into the meeting, and I put down a stack of tape recordings. Read More
When you came to Mesker Park Zoo, and you told the mayor of some things you were thinking of, did you kind of have a plan that you were, as you walked around the zoo, that you were thinking you’d like to, a master plan that you’d like to try… Read More
Did you live on the zoo property or did you have to find a home?… Read More
I had to find a home. I lived for the whole summer months in a tiny apartment downtown with a Murphy bed folding out of the wall. Read More
And we went back to his office and he hired me. Read More
To be honest, very few. I learned a lot I shouldn’t do. I learned a lot. Read More
And what skills did you learn or take away from Fort Worth that you think were helpful when you became the zoo director?… Read More
I’m gonna be the only director of the zoo. Read More
You, Mr. Mayor, are not gonna be involved in directing that zoo.” I just want to say that I think that the priest was at that time leading the society in Evansville, right?… Read More
Yes. were with him. Yes. Yup. Speak up, Frank. And I went out to the zoo with the mayor. And we looked around, and I pointed out stuff that I would change. This needs to go. This needs to go. This needs to be changed. Read More
A priest. A priest. Fort Worth with a priest. There’s some zoo people. I was asking Frank about leaving- Fort Worth. Read More
They were from Evansville, right?… Read More
Right, yeah. Okay. You spoke really long. And I knew that Evansville had lost their zoo director or fired or whatever. Yeah, I’ll admit, I sort of got friendly with the priest and the others from Evansville. A week after, I got, a week after I wound up at the… Read More
What?… Read More
The next step was a meeting in Fort Worth of a number of zoos, a number of zoo people. There was a priest and a couple of other people there from. I didn’t hear who you said there. Read More
Now you mentioned that at some point you felt, “Well, Fort Worth may not be the best place for my professional knowledge.” What made you decide to start looking elsewhere than Fort Worth, and what was the next step after that?… Read More
Now Little Lawrence was an orangutan?… Read More
Yes. A good sized baby. Two or three years old. I don’t know. He could stop me when I grabbed the bars. Read More
He was called Little Lawrence by everybody in the zoo except the zoo director, whose name was Lawrence. And Little Lawrence was loose. And I went in and closed the door behind me, obviously. Little Lawrence was, oh, two or three years old. He put us back feet around my… Read More