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
Now, you went from there to the Portland Zoo?… Read More
Yes. Read More
So that was a, Mertens was a problem. But he did excellent work. I learned a lot from the man. But I’d never hire him again. He came to Oklahoma City and wanted a job. No, no. Read More
When you left Fort Worth, how old were you?… Read More
I left in ’87. So I was, 47 years old. Read More
Then he went to a new zoo, was it in Charleston, South Carolina?… Read More
North Carolina. North Carolina? That’s where he went. Well, he built a new zoo there. And then he had some kind of a problem there, and he got fired. And then he became an animal dealer. He worked for Bill Chase. And Bill Chase even said, you know, “You gotta… Read More
Is that where?… 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’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
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 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