I mean, once again, the keepers, there was primarily male, white male, probably 80%. There were a few women keepers at those days and some minorities, but it was most of them, most of the men were long term forties to fifties, maybe some, even 60 year old keepers that… Read More
They certainly, it existed in the culture, the politic, the whole nature of San Francisco. And I remember having a conversation with Saul, I mean, talking about the what’s like working at the zoo and working for the city and all the what’s about, and he was explicit in talking… Read More
Because A I had to leave Evansville, I was never happy with Evansville itself. I was raised in Chicago, I liked a bigger city environment. The idea of coming to San Francisco, certainly peaked my interest. And the thought of working for Saul, I thought would be absolutely great. I… Read More
Yet again, being in the right place at the right time, when I knew I was losing my job, that it was being eliminated, I initially started talking to people and looking to see what’s available. And Saul, who I worked with at Lincoln Park had become the director of… Read More
You were told that your job was being eliminated from the Mesker Park Zoo, and you’re looking for a job or how did your next job come about?… Read More
So your experience, seeing other things that zoos help develop this?… Read More
Yes, saw things in contact areas. I guess, one thing that I remember and I don’t remember I saw, but we wound up using it. I mean, we did a giant habit trail type exhibit, I think it was gerbils, I don’t know, our old maintenance building was a garage. Read More
Yeah, oh lots, yeah. Literally, I mean, I was there working after hours or on weekends, I mean building, it was one of these things that you want, oh, it’s gonna open June 1st, you know, and here we are May 15th. What are we gonna do in two weeks,… Read More
So you had input into it?… Read More
‘Cause that was built from the ground up. And I mean, it was built in house too. Once again, with SEEDA money, we had people to do stuff. We actually got a donation from a family for $50,000 for materials, it was the family of the president of the park… Read More
In thinking of it, I mean, in terms of what was actually done, we built the contact area. And we built a maintenance building, and the maintenance building actually was really important to the zoo. I mean, it was before we get a garage that housed the maintenance building, that… Read More
What, in the time you were at Mesker Park, what was the exhibit you were proudest of?… Read More
There was a public outcry so to speak the keepers, some of the keepers wanted me to stay in the director to leave. But that was just personal choices, you know, it became newsworthy at the time that there was this heated debate about me leaving. I mean, I was… Read More
You seem like you were valuable employee to the director. There were all kind, whether it was a matter, I don’t remember the press or I was formally or Dion sat me down, but it was certainly in the news. I don’t remember exactly the instant that I knew that… Read More
How did they inform you that your position would be eliminated and did they offer you anything else?… Read More
So we literally had people in almost every, we had animal keepers that were Animal City paid animal keepers, SEEDA paid animal keepers. We had maintenance people that were SEEDA paid bottom line is, there were counterparts for every position except for two at the zoo, the director and the… Read More
That was my downfall actually, once again, downfall and mixed blessing. As we talked about earlier, the city became very dependent on SEEDA funds, where all through the city and the zoo, positions were funded and then in 78, the city wound up having a physical financial crisis where there… Read More
There was a pretty substantial layoff at the zoo in 1978, what had happened and how were you affected in your management?… Read More
Well, yeah, once again, the zoo, the business has evolved. So how you’re doing things and maybe you don’t have to pick up as many crates as you used to, you have equipment that we didn’t have. We never had a forklift at Evansville. we had several forklifts in San… Read More
So that was one of my foibles later on in life. Read More