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
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
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
Frank Thompson, do you remember him?… 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
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
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
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
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
For some reason the park department did not fall under that rule for the city. If the city fires you, you have appellate departments, or committees and all that. It could go all the way up to the city manager. And interestingly, the city manager was another good friend of… 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
When you left Fort Worth, were there things you wanted yet to accomplish?… Read More
And so I didn’t have anybody. But it became, the society finally quit. Read More
And so I was not without blame, but he did fire me. He fired me. And it was the city… Our senator, our state senator, who was a friend of mine, said, “Who is this Charles Campbell?” I said, “Well, he’s my boss. He was my boss. Read More
He ran the park department.” “Well, hell, I never heard of him, but everybody knows the zoo.” I guess nobody ever thought about, well who does he report to?… Read More
I said, (chuckles) “Well, it’s, you know, I do report to people occasionally.” And anyway, the AAZPA sent Dr. Ogilvy, he was new at Oklahoma City, sent him down to represent the AAZPA, and Ogilvy was very good. And within about two days, Campbell had given about 18 reasons, that… Read More
It was hard to keep a low profile in that, but I did my best. But finally, Campbell… My budgets were always a problem. And nobody taught me about budgets, including him. But I did learn, and I was able to with his, he had a guy in there who… Read More