And in those days, Mark, the zoo was so small and the duties were so concentrated that she and her secretary were at the zoo’s entrance, which was long been destroyed. A tiny little building near where the bus drivers, where the bus began to pick up on the tour. Read More
And of course, sea lions was the standard mammal thing. That they bought the sea lions from the Portuguese fishermen and developed those. But at any rate, very soon, the man that operated, there were two sight seeing buses in San Diego Zoo at the time. They were a long… Read More
So I got to know Ms. Benchley, who was in the… They called her executive secretary, but she essentially was later, she did the same duty, but she was named the director. Dr. Harry Wegeforth was still alive at that time, he died in the middle of the war. But… Read More
Just part-time weekends, school holidays. But even with those school holidays, I had a Model A Ford, that when I was a junior in high school, I’d worked as a firefighter to earn money, which was a frequent thing at where I’d gone to high school there and summer jobs. Read More
And that’s the way it is here. And I’ve never forgotten those, what simple, easy, clear cut, and truly valuable, meaningful. Find out what we do, why we do it, and then gimme your ideas. Read More
So you were hired as a part-time keeper or Full-time keeper?… Read More
And Cy, essentially, back to the war time and how that affected the zoo. It affected the zoo because a person that could be a keeper in the zoo could go two miles away, worked for consolidated aircraft, know nothing about building airplanes, but get to work on time, learn… Read More
My concern was my interest in reptiles and what a marvelous, marvelous opportunity, Mark, it was to work there. So Chuck got you in. Chuck got me into the zoo and Cy Perkins, I can remember to this day, the most important information he ever imparted, because he’d gone through… Read More
And so all of a sudden, here I am, 18 years old, working at the San Diego Zoo as an assistant reptile curator, not reptile curator, reptile keeper. Kind of back me up now. You’re in San Diego, you’ve started college. Yes, now what happened then- How did you, you… Read More
He lived there in San Diego, in the city, a guy named Chuck Shaw. Now Chuck Shaw was a year older than me, and Chuck later became the reptile curator at San Diego for many years. And then at his later years at San Diego Zoo, he became assistant director. Read More
And we did not realize that, of course, that we were going to war with Japan soon. However, in San Diego, my primary objective of selecting San Diego State College as the place to go to college was the presence of the San Diego Zoo. And what had happened, what… Read More
I did, and that goes back to in Georgia, before I left Georgia, they had a statement, a saying, thank God for Mississippi. And the reason for that, I suspect you might know, that in the then 48 states, Georgia was 47th and Mississippi was 48th and such standards as… Read More
And I finished high school there, grade school, high school in Ontario, California, Chaffey High, and San Diego State was only, and still is only 100 miles away. And San Diego Zoo existed, and was not only thriving, but a form of zoo in the west, in the ’30s as… Read More
Did you go to college?… Read More
And if I received a bite, I would not be sitting here today. And there was no backup system, who to call, no 911. And I was just very, very lucky. Read More
What kind of schooling did you have?… Read More
So I was essentially raised by my mom and her sister. And for summers, I can recall going to St. Simon’s Island down off the Southeastern, just north of the Florida line in Southern Georgia, at a little beach house with neighbors. And there was a boy my same age… Read More
When you were growing up, what is the first, obviously you had a love of animals, what is the first zoo that you can remember seeing?… Read More
I have a very vague recollection of Grants Park in Atlanta. And despite the fact that all of us who folks know in the ’20s, Grant Park would not pass AGA accreditation or any accreditation. I thought my recollection of it was wonderful, and I can remember Anne elephant, and… Read More
Were you a child who would bring animals home?… Read More