you fed peanuts to the chimps. You sometimes made funny signs to the animals and that kind of thing, at least the public did. Me, I just was fascinated by looking at the animals. And so, you know that changed my life. I said, I’m gonna be a zookeeper. I… Read More
Like Tom Stalph, he’s like seasoned executive officer, president, zoo director, all in one big old title, across a piece of paper. You’re my age, You know what I’m talking about. Zoo Director, Assistant Zoo Director, Chief Curator, Curator, First Keeper One, First Keeper Two, and ever down. And then… Read More
I took his knife, I was going backwards with it. I don’t know, I just, I was fascinated by the pets, and sure some people had pet birds and stuff like that. And that was, or a snake or something, that was really rare back then, but they did do… Read More
Did I know the difference in caging and moats?… Read More
Not really. Most of us didn’t by the way. As I tell people, by the way, most zoos in this country in 1950s, 60s, even early 70s, should’ve been shut down back then. And I’ll go in later about why today is a much different story. And thank God they… Read More
So, my animals, and you know, that’s just kinda how everything started. Let me, you mentioned that you wanted to be, and you had a vision of wanting to be a zookeeper, an animal keeper. Read More
And why did you want to be an animal keeper?… Read More
I don’t know, I just, I, all those years I cleaned cages at the clinic. I didn’t mind cleaning cages. You know, I don’t know what it was, but I just had fun hosing and cleaning. Maybe it was, another relief for me, or just something I was accomplishing. I… Read More
I then took his pet shop, I opened up a boarding kennel, I’m building about these trailers out back real nice. I made me a little pens, with goats and sheep and not exotic, you know, llamas and stuff like that. And ’cause Knoxville Zoo was 20 miles away. I… Read More
I think it didn’t help at all, as far as having pets as exotic pets. But one thing I didn’t do, I didn’t go out selling lions and things like that, by any means. I had Daisy, my lion, I learned from. You know, I learned from this lion. She… Read More
They thought I might be avoiding it, but I wasn’t because my best man at my wedding, my five best friends were all killed in Vietnam in eight months. So, you know, I knew I had to do something, but therefore I got removed out on a medical thing after… Read More
“I mean, your courses you took, “you majored in political science.” I did that because I’ve dropped back a second ’cause I was drafted the army during the Vietnam War. So, all my family went in the service, but that’s another story. The point is I just wanted to graduate,… Read More
So it made me feel bad, you know?… Read More
And I said, “I don’t care. “It didn’t change my dream.” I’ll come out and answer your question about Steve Rasmussen, or not Steve Rasmussen, he’s the head of Nationwide Insurance. But Mr. Rasmussen, he had just pet shop, and I heard it was for sale. A real nice one,… Read More
“Jack, you’ve worked hard. “We know that you had a hard time in classes, “you graduated.” And you also had already married my wife on our senior year. Read More
“Why would you want to go and work “in a smelly place like a zoo?… Read More
“Are you crazy?… Read More
So why am I going to see the president?… Read More
He looks at me like that, he goes, dead serious. He says, “Young man,” he called me young man. Read More
“Why would you go to school here?… Read More