Well, there was a problem, I wanted to get into the wetlands area and there were some problems. I was supposed to go to the Army Corps of Engineers or some damn thing, and I decided against that. So I built pond and paid the guys $12,000 to build it. Read More
In building the zoo, were there problems that you encountered in putting together a brand new zoo?… Read More
Well, I had been to other zoos, yes. But I didn’t really go to other zoos to get a plan. What I wanted to do there, I pretty well knew what I wanted to do. But like the giraffe feeding tower that we built, you got that idea from safari,… Read More
Did you visit other zoos for ideas?… Read More
Yes. He showed me some things that I needed to do to have a back run to the back where the animals could go into stay in the zoo but they can go inside the barns. So that was a good move, and Earl talked to me about that. You… Read More
You ever heard of rotatum?… Read More
No. Read More
Did someone help you in the beginning, in the design of the zoo or was it all you?… Read More
That would go around the islands, where the chimps- It would go around the islands. Where the chimps and the gorillas- Where the chimps and gorillas were and things like that. And we had zebra and ostrich and normal stuff, rhinos and things there. So we borrowed the money to… Read More
Yeah. God, I was delighted. And you had some vision of what you wanted it to be, tell me about the vision. Well, I tried to stay away from little tiny cages and things like that the best I could, with the money I had to work with. We built… Read More
So when you first got the zoo, Pat, was this to you a dream come true?… Read More
At Benson’s, Eric Mogenson, who now owns the Gulf Breeze Zoo, Eric and his wife worked for Pat at Benson’s, they were college students. He had a lot of college students working for him and they were working their way through school at Benson’s. And he now owns the zoo. Read More
Well, first we made a trip down to buy property. And a friend of ours, as a matter of fact, Dr. Kalsaski, who I had mentioned before, his wife was now in real estate and she sold us the property that the zoo was on. That was the first 19… Read More
Then you left Benson and became director?… Read More
So you had an initial investment based on your figures to come back to Pensacola to build a zoo?… Read More
And that was the trip, when we went back, where our friends joined us and we were sitting in the Masai Mara on the river and Pat said, “I’d love to come back to Pensacola.” Dr. Potter a friend of mine. Dr. Potter, Ron Huck and- Prentice Robinson Prentice Robinson. Read More
We did, yes. And we went back to Africa a year later and stayed at the Norfolk Hotel. In the room that the bomb went off in. Well, the rebuilt room. I can remember my foot going over the edge of the bed and think, oh, whoop. I did too. Read More
And you went back to the wild animal park, is that correct?… Read More
Initially. Yeah, we were. And I had a lot of therapy on this hand because this hand was all busted up. Read More
Pat, were you further hospitalized in the United States?… Read More