You had to get with the, you know, make the zoo come into the 20th century, kind of thing. And luckily, I’ll tell you some, a very, very funny story, actually. We had a, as I said we had this master plan, and this is when the time, this is… Read More
They wanted to see a plan. And so we said, we were, we got together with the architects and we said, “Well, we wanna do three things that are relatively easy to do, to get started right away.” ‘Cause you had to have, on the 90th day, you had to… Read More
You couldn’t put them there. Some other guy with more seniority wanted that position, so that’s who got it. Read More
After you had time to walk around the zoo, talk to people, did you start to develop a vision for the zoo?… Read More
Well let me say- Start to implement it?… Read More
I would’ve asked somebody or tried to find out, what are the black ones, what’s the difference between those two colors?… Read More
He never did. And at time I said to him, “Well the males are black, and that’s how you can tell,” he said, “Oh.” And so, you know, that kind of thing. And it was repeated, it was repeated in a lot of areas. I mean, they all had, they… Read More
That weren’t ran by seniority. Where even if they really weren’t, if these keepers weren’t suited to work in a certain, really work in a certain area, it doesn’t matter. They could sign up for it, and it’s very difficult to prohibit them from working in that area. You’d have… Read More
And I said, “Well, how wouldn’t you know?” Said, “The males are black.” (laughing) He said, “Oh, I wondered what that was about.” And I said, “Oh my God,” you know, “what have I got myself into,” you know?… Read More
And they just didn’t know, didn’t know, didn’t know that at all. And that may seem like a little thing, but it’s indicative, it was indicative. I would’ve found out, you know, had I been in charge of this area. Read More
And I didn’t know that till later. So they were my champions at first and were not even, they really weren’t a Zoo Society per se. They were like the Friends of the Zoo. And that was a big strength of that zoo, that Friends of the Zoo. They never,… Read More
And also, I think that the keeper staff was also inbred, very inbred. Nobody, there was a few people that had worked at other zoos, but very few. And they all, and they really were, they weren’t well trained. They weren’t, they didn’t know anything. They knew very little about… Read More
And it was a exhibit of sorts for wallaroo. And they had a bunch of, a lot of them, had quite a few. They were breeding them very well, and they were, they just had a lot, and it was a beautiful exhibit. I mean, wild, very wild, unkempt-looking on,… Read More
What did you find, what were its strengths?… Read More
What were its weaknesses?… Read More
Well, the zoo had, as I say, I think it had a lot of strengths or potential. Let me say that, a lot of potential strengths. But It had, I think the major weakness honestly, was that it was so insular. Everything about the place. They had no, there was… Read More
I don’t know how much I learned, (laughing) but I watched him, I can tell you that. No, I knew what to do. Now whether I did it or not is another story, but no, you know, it was, he was very, very happy about it. So you come to… Read More
And of course we just had, my son was only eight months old, and that was not a smart move on our part to do, to be honest. And he was okay most of the time, but then right at the end, he got deathly ill. He got some stomach… Read More
I mean, that was a tough part. At the end of it was a real tough, tough four or five days. Now you arrive at the zoo. Read More
Did you ask his advice, or- I told him, I told him about it and he was very, very congratulatory. He was very happy for me. And I think he liked the idea that another Lincoln Park alumni became a director, because that’s, the zoo is famous for that. You… Read More