Interview 24641 – Caption Index: 224
Is that where?… Read More
Is that where?… Read More
Then little things would start happening. You know about palace revolutions. John wanted to, he wanted to move up. He wanted his own zoo. He and Charles Campbell sort of got together, and that wasn’t good for me. There wasn’t anything that was any big deal. That was a role… Read More
I’ve forgotten the name of it. I’ll remember it in a minute. But he went down there as director. And then he went to a zoo, but he had a problem there. He didn’t last there long. Read More
He gave me ideas and all that. But everybody who he had worked for just was so, “You don’t want to hire that guy.” And finally, it was a double-edged sword, I think. Mertens was very good with reptiles. He really was excellent. And he was good with people, to… Read More
I think I’m a pretty good teacher. If you really want to learn the business, and you came and worked for me, by god, we’d give you a run for your money. And we didn’t charge you any tuition, you know, it was free. And along with the title. John… Read More
He was at Catskill and he was at Indianapolis, I think. And somewhere in Indiana. Frank, his background in zoos was circuses. His wife was an acrobat, I think. And so they come from different places, but he’d gotten some excellent experience at the Catskill, very good experience. And this… Read More
No, Mertens was the curator of reptiles at the Columbus Zoo, as I recall. And they stole him away from Columbus, to the Cleveland Zoo, so he was in two zoos. Actually, they didn’t steal him. He was fired in Columbus. And then he was fired at Cleveland. And he… Read More
So titles mean something to people. To compensate, people for lack of good salaries, we gave them titles. And we also trained them. And I think there was, we trained a lot of people there. And Gary Clark went from Fort Worth to director of Topeka. His boss there, who… Read More
Called me before he hired Gary back. Gary had been there as a keeper. And he wanted to know if Gary was mature enough by then, and how he’d done. And he was not ready to just, you know, take him back. And I told him if he didn’t take… Read More
Frank Thompson, do you remember him?… Read More
Hell yeah, I had all kinds of ideas. Probably half of them impractical. But dreams are that way, good dreams. And if you just do, half of them, or a fourth of them, you know, you’re probably gonna do okay. So yes, I had plenty of things I wanted to… Read More
No more, maybe $25 more a month or something. When Gary was there, I told him he was the curator of birds. Hell, I mean, he was just a kid. At the Kansas City Zoo, he was in charge of the birthday parties at the children’s zoo. But a title… Read More
One of the big problems at Fort Worth was money, as I’ve already said. And since, (chuckles) I was in the park department, I couldn’t pay my people any anymore than, you know, the guy that would trim the trees. Or the horticulturist at the Botanic Garden and all that,… Read More
God, you know, I have to tell you, Fort Worth was, of course, my first zoo. Warren Thomas, who has a way with words, told me that Oklahoma City was his first zoo. And he said it was like a mistress, your first mistress. You just are in love with… Read More
Did I have plans for the future?… Read More
I never had even thought about leaving there. Oh, I had an offered to go to the Los Angeles Zoo once. I turned that down. And offers to go to, I had an offer to go to New York twice. Coates wanted me to come up there. Well, I wanted… Read More
Did I want to accomplish things at Fort Worth before that I was unable to do since I got fired?… Read More
Is that right?… Read More
And after Ogilvy got through and there was some talk of, what do you call it when you appeal a ruling?… Read More
And so I didn’t have anybody. But it became, the society finally quit. Read More