Interview 24153 – Caption Index: 279
Tom was invited to come to Circus Vargas, and he went to Circus Vargas. Read More
Tom was invited to come to Circus Vargas, and he went to Circus Vargas. Read More
We got a hold of Liz?… Read More
Is it Liz or Debbie? I can’t remember. Cuneo. We took two of them out from Cuneo’s place, two different ones. Liz was one and I think Debbie was the other one. And I can’t remember that year, whether you had Debbie when Connie watched your rides, that year. I… Read More
with the clowns and they needed a, their elephants were out on the road, and they needed an elephant that was manageable enough to stand with strangers, the clowns. He took her over there, and they made the commercial, and then came back. Yeah, anyway. He was booked into Omaha… Read More
And this was 1989, right?… Read More
I’m not sure. Well, I’m pretty sure. Going by the age of Connie, we had Connie about a year by then, ’89. And we went ahead. We used Connie at a Circus Days celebration in Sarasota. We could truck her around and use her for being an elephant. We still… Read More
You couldn’t even get to come up to a platform with somebody standing on the platform. And it was at this point Tom was booked in to Omaha for the summer with a ride elephant. Somehow, I don’t know how he worked it or who did, who did what to… Read More
All right, she belonged to?… Read More
Cuneo. That’s what I thought. He decided he would take this giving elephant rides with Liz and went into, into Omaha with her. God almighty, big old truck. It just about made it everywhere it went. He had her here. I don’t remember what he went to Ringling for. You… Read More
Yes. Read More
How’d you develop those, from your experience?… Read More
From common sense. We weren’t being rough with ’em. It’s common sense on the part of circus trainers to go well at it. And when the elephant doesn’t do what you expect it to do, knock hell out of it, jab it in the leg with a bull hook. I… Read More
So when did you decide you had to start training Connie to do something?… Read More
Did you have different training methods that you were saying you thought would work better?… Read More
‘Cause she’s costing you money here. Well, you’re constantly training with no end in sight. You can’t handle an elephant without training. It realizes you want something, and it does it. Read More
Well, you’re talking about Connie the elephant. As you’re progressing, you have an elephant now, and you’re trying to figure out what to do with it. Yeah. Okay. Tom came in here with his wife and two or three elephants. Two elephants I think he had at first. Read More
And they came in, they were chained out in the field, out in front. They had nothing to do with Connie. Obviously she knew the elephants were there. They were aware of her being here too. They saw each other usually. So he was here with two elephants, and they… Read More
Connie?… Read More
We had no plan for it, but she was here, and we loved her. We took her out in the field, out in front. It was well fenced. She walked along with us and became a trained elephant. Not very well trained but trained. Our son Tom was working with… Read More
Tom met his wife there. His wife had been, this girl, had been boss showgirl on the Ringling show and was hired away from the Ringling show by Cliff Vargas, who was a gay and means nothing, a gay guy that owned this, this fabulous big show on the West… Read More