Description:
Carrol "Bird Dog" Rogers talks about the Oklahoma City Zoo.
Today is September 28, 2010, and Wendy Gabrielson is here from the Metropolitan Library System recording myself Sheri Vance interviewing C.B. or Bird Dog Rodgers. Bird Dog if you could give us your full name, your birth place, and the year you were born.
CR.: My name is Carrol Bird Dog Rodgers. I was born in Perryville Arkansas, in 1928, I’m 82.
SV: 82 great. How did you come to be at the Oklahoma City Zoo?
CB: Well, I, of course, I was with animals all my life, I grew up as a cowboy. When you get around to it the animals are very much like you got their, you know, you got the… horses are simple-stomach animals like a few of, well, like rhinos, elephants, you know, zebras. And then you got the cattle…are complex-stomach animals like your giraffes and your camels and you’re antelope. Really this came easy for me. It was something that I enjoyed very much. It came easy for me because it was like taking care of some real high price horses and cows.
SB: Well, that’s great and how did you learn about the job at the Oklahoma City Zoo and what year was it?
CB: It was 1958 that I began here. Dr. Warren Thomas…they brought him in as director. Dr. Thomas, on a trip to South Africa to do a little research and some collecting, he got bit by the tsetse Flies and came down with the trypanosomasis - the sleeping sickness - and he was in poor health so…and we were a part of the park department in those days. We were a branch of the park department so they used me in different branches of it at times they’d have a problem with the swimming pool and they would send me there to look after it and kind of straighten out what the problems might be and then Dr. Thomas health was not good and so I’d be here at the zoo. And at that time there was not an office in the zoo our office was in City Hall. Well, you know that’s several miles away and you got the problems connected with that the time problems and so I came to the zoo early, always woke up early and got up to do the chores and was used to that. So when I’d come to the zoo and of course back in those days it was not an admissions zoo it was free. And we had a parameter fence though of course and I’d unlock and come in I would always make the rounds and look at every animal and every display and the animals there, so if something had expired during the night you know we wanted to take care of that before any public came in. And then if something needed special care it was easy for me to spot then we could work on it as we could as the day went on and then the guys would begin to arrive now back in those days our total employment was 9 people. And you talk about some hard working dedicated people they were, we had 1500 animals of course when a lot of them were small ones and we had a lot of reptiles, we had a lot of birds. But we had a fantastic cat collection ,fantastic bear collection, we had we only had one elephant at the time and one hippo and things began to, being from the background that I was from farmed all, you know you get up and feed and clean and medicate whatever you need to and then the day is kind of boring from there on if you got nothing to do your just raking manure you walk around and say well, I think we can do a better job if we did this did that back those days we didn’t even have a sidewalk in the zoo. And then we had a real tragedy happen I forget the date, really seemed like it was 59 or 60 that city personnel had sent us a young boy and seemed like as well as I can remember it was just for the summer, so I guess he was probably a college boy to work as a zoo keeper well he didn’t
always listen to instructions well and we had very specifics safety procedures but he didn’t follow them that day he opened, he unlocked the outside door went in left the doors open he went through the safety doors, left those open, he unlocked all of the locks in there, which we had 1,2,3,4,5,6 locks in that area you opened you just had them hanging in the handles the pulls of the handles there he opened the inside doors to let the cats come into the den area so you could shut them up and go out and clean well he opened the door for the lions and they started to come in and the tigers which didn’t always come in as well as the lions did and this excess area service area serviced both dens. So he saw the tiger come in so he forgot the lions, and run over and caught the tigers and then he ran back over and slammed the catch door on the lions what he didn’t realize he’d left one outside and he just not thinking and not paying attention not following procedure he opened the service door and went out with his shovel and rake and to clean up and the old girl got him. She had him down but she wasn’t trying to kill him she was basically trying to play with him and when he would start to move she would extend her claws and drag him back to her and bite him hold him and then when he quit moving and laid still she turned him loose and just laid there with her paws on top of him looking around. At that time we had two houses which were just right out here a few yards that personnel lived in and so one of them was the foreman when I wasn’t around he was responsible, he was very very good with animals, he was pretty good with people, but when things didn’t go right he was not good and a cat having a boy down in the den that’s not going right and the public saw it and was screaming and running and so he ran to the house and got his 30-0-6 came back and got on the top side of the den and that cat was laying on top of the boy there and so he shot it the first shot he hit the kid in the shoulder. It was not a fatal shot or anything but he shot him in the shoulder with a 30-0-6 and then he shot the cat shot the cat eleven times and didn’t kill it and we had the city attorney at that time said, we were going to put the cat to sleep of course and he said oh no no that’s evidence we’ve got to keep it alive well we did for almost a year and I just couldn’t stand it, finally one morning and we’d go in there and treat that thing every day and one morning I couldn’t stand it so I just euthanized it and just told them hey the cat finally gave it up. But you know you have some of these things that happen, you know are tragic and yet the boy made it and got along fine he had some scars and that was it.
SV: But he learned a lot. I’m sure.
CR: Valuable lesson you pay attention when you’re told certain things.
SV: Right well that’s one experience that I hadn’t heard about. I’m sure there some more that I haven’t.
CR: We don’t publicize that too much because it happened and public was there and they saw it and portions of it got in the paper it was not a secret they really were not aware of the kid getting shot that first shot they just knew the cat got him.
SV: In those days we learn from the past how to keep our zoo a safe zoo. Are there other experiences that you recall that made an impact on you or someone else in the zoo?
CR: Oh, yes. See I left this zoo in 65 only because at that time we had the world’s greatest hoofed animal collection and still one of the greatest if not the greatest. I was very happy and we were building the south end, building an area over there for hoofed animals we had moved well at that time we had
moved all of them and just moving them was really something because there was no pharmaceuticals those days to put an animal down. The only thing the best thing you had was succinylcholine and using that 50% even if you had an oxygen tank right there you’re going to lose that’s not a good average. So we trapped them took the cage that we trapped them in lifted it up and put it on our 2 ½ ton flatbed truck drove it over to the south end in the pen set it down and let them out. So you put a 800 pound stud zebra in one of them crates you know the crate itself is pretty heavy it’s going to hold him and them fighting around and just manually these dedicated zoo keepers we had would pick that thing up and lift it up and put it on that truck go over there unload it let the animal out. That’s the way we moved all them animals which exception of a few of them we moved a little differently, but the Cape buffalo that we had at the time oh we had a trio of them, male and two females and they were beginning to grow and mature and the bull you know when he was young I used to grab him by the ear and lead him around I rode him several times but he was growing up and finding out he was a Cape and he was getting dangerous and had him in the new pens there and I was the first one always going in, I came in roughly at 5:30 in the morning. And every morning I’d make my rounds over there the Capes would be out almost every night the old bull would take the gate down and he would go to other pens in that area where the grass was tall and go in there and graze. So every morning then I would get a bucket and get some feed and go down there and call them and lead him back into their pen well he was getting real testy so I got to where I could dump a little feed run a little ways then he would eat that feed come to where I’d dump some more that’s the way I would lead him back in then I would patch up the gate, till the men got here then I’d tell them hey to fix that gate well this went on for some time and so I was drawing up plans to put a rail in there to prevent this and keep the animal safe from the public and the keepers when they were working that they would have an escape or would have an escape. At that time see the zoo we just had that small staff 9 people and we had no maintenance equipment or personnel and at that time the city had what they called skilled labor that was department and whatever you wanted you had to requisition they would come out and do it for you of course they worked it according to their schedule and then they worked on a zero based budget and they charged us to put into their budget pay for this and I kept fussing with the city manager at that time he was the only boss I had. I kept fussing at him that things were really getting serious animal would hurt somebody and really hurt them bad I said you know so far I’ve been lucky I’ve been able to get him back in by myself. I have probably about as much knowledge about as handling them as anybody but you know it’s getting bad and he said well you know I have things going on here and that’s not our priority I said I know it’s not but it’s my priority I said that animal going to kill somebody. Well, it finally got so bad that the bull got to where they couldn’t clean the place up in there at all. He was just too dangerous and so I went to the boss and told him I said you know the honeymoon is over we have to do something I said I’ve already drawn the plans for the railing that we need for this and that all I need is that you get your skilled labor guys out there and you know put it up. And he said well you know I’ve got more problems than that, can’t do it. I said chief I said I understand your problems but this is extremely serious and I said he’s going to hurt someone and hurt them bad. And those guys out there are real special to me and I said if that happens then I’m not sure I can handle that. And he said well we’ll just have to wait and I said I can’t do that. I told him I said now I’ll go out and dictate my letter to your secretary you got six weeks to find you somebody and I said then you have six weeks of grace for the next six weeks I’m not going to be in the office and I’m not going to do anything except I’m going to be a zookeeper and take care of the
Capes and I said I’ll take care of them and we won’t have any problem for the next six weeks. But don’t ignore this cause he’s going to kill somebody and he well well now let’s not do that. And I said yeah I got to, my brother was senator at that time and he called him to see if he could convince me to stay at that time. Naw, he’s said he’s got his way of doing things. So anyway a, after six weeks I left and I just toured around the country because I hadn’t had a day off in 6 years. And so I had a lot of fun going around seeing some of the guys I hadn’t seen for a while seeing what they were doing and at that time they were building the new zoo in Louisville Kentucky. The whole state of Kentucky had never had a zoo throughout history and they were building one then and the director was a friend of mine and so I visited with him a couple of days and he wanted to know he was going to get some Cape Buffalo in and he said what do we need and I sat down with his architect and went over this with him. They designed it that way. Then, I got tired of running around and got to needing money so I went to Omaha and went to work for my old boss Dr. Thomas, who was at Omaha then building a new zoo. So I went up there as his assistant and I don’t really remember the time because I tried to put this out of my mind and it was 6 or 8, 10 weeks I don’t remember and back in those days the long distance calls were handled by operators and I was in the office with there with Doc one day when the secretary said well Bird Dog you have a long distance call. I said dang I didn’t know anyone knew where I was. Anyway I took the call and it was our secretary Joyce she said Bird Dog I hate to tell you this but that Cape just killed Cotton, killed one of my men. And I just it bothered me so bad I quit the zoo business then and I told the Doc I’ve got to leave. He said take whatever time you need and I said no that’s not it I’ve fought this politics too long and I just can’t handle it. I said I told them I would not be able to handle it when it got one of these guys. I said even now I can’t handle it; so I left, I went back to my old alma muter and taught for a few years.
SV: And what was that?
CR: I went two OCU and taught anatomy and kinesiology.
SV: OCU, great.
CR: Yes, madam.
SV: Well, I have actually have seen some film clips of when that accident occurred.
CR: Is that right
SV: From the WKY collection
CR: I tried to forget it you don’t forget it but the time gets confusing
SV: Well you did your best. Well what are some good times that you recall because I know you had lots of wonderful experiences here that brought a lot of community together
CR: Like the Shepherd family they had a farm over there on 23rd street back in the early days and Shepherd Mall that’s on part of their farm now and the two sisters and the brother they were alive at that time and we ran out of money we didn’t have enough money to buy feed for our animals and we
had our guy get in the big truck every morning and go around to all the grocery stores and got there produce watermelons, cantaloupes, lettuce, bananas you know onions, potatoes, whatever they was going to throw away. And they would put them in a box for us and we brought that back to feed and we but we ran out of hay and grain and so I got a call and this guy on the phone said I saw in the paper where you’re running out of feed. I said yes sir, sure are this was that Shepherd brother and he said what kind of stock you got out there. So I started to tell him and he said well I don’t know you’re talking about what do they eat. I said well all of our hoofed animals eat basically like a cow or a horse they eat hay and grain. He said hay I’ll just bale this place and bring it to you and he did he baled his farm there and brought it out here, we didn’t have any feed. Then, he died and the two sisters when we started the Zoological Society, one of the sisters I think it was Edith was there at the first meeting when we organized the society and she was of course the rest of her life. And she was a real doll, time went on you know we had a male cheetah, that we didn’t have a female cause we couldn’t buy one we didn’t have any money. So this animal dealer he called one day and wanted he said I got a cat I need to put some place I said what kind of cat he said cheetah. I said yea you can put it here which means you know I was going to house it until he sold it. Then he would take it home we had several animals we displayed like that we did not own. They were just loaners. So it came in and the cat was easy to get along with I put a harness on it and so I took it over to Miss Shepherds place to show it to her and she just squealed and said oh my, what is this I told her and she would pet it and it would just purr. I said well we don’t own it and as soon as he sells it he’s going to pick it up. She said what he wants for it. And I told her and she said well we’ll just buy it. She said and you’ve got to have a mate for it, we have a mate, she said well you need more than one. So she bought the cats, time goes on and an animal dealer he was an international criminal really. He was a funny guy I just loved him, but very few people could get along with him. Just so happened I was one that did. And he flew a PBY one of airplanes that could land on water or ground. He would fly into an island or place and confiscate the animals you know illegally and put them in the plane and take off and bring them back and sell them. There was not any control over them like we have now a days. Endangered species, none of that ever was thought of back in those days. He had called once and said hey he said I’ve got a orang a young one said, I don’t have a place to put him right now, have you got a place you can take care of it. I said sure, you bet. I wanted something to display. So he brought this baby orang in it weighed I think as well as I can remember 12 pounds. Little redheaded baby you know with that hair sticking up and he had it wrapped in a blanket come in on a commercial flight they thought he had a baby. And that was back when the stewardess she warmed the bottle for him and all and he fed it on the flight none knew it wasn’t a baby except him. So he gets in and I get this baby and oh man it’ll just grab you with those long arms and feet and he would just hang on, it was something we wanted very bad, but we knew he was going to sell it as soon as he could. So I took it over to show Miss Shepherd. She opened that door and that thing reached out and for her and grabbed her and well needless to say she bought it and gave us other money to buy others and money to take care of them. She knew they had to be taken care of she always paid this and you know those days were very good days and back in those days Will Rodgers Airport was not that big. The closest place we had for air freight was Dallas nothing flew in air freight to Oklahoma City. So when we would order an animal or get one we had to go to Dallas to pick it up. We got a young Gorilla that came in it was in the winter time and we had that old city car and we had that old truck and the truck didn’t have a heater in it and you know had to go it was the winter time had to go down and pick up this
Gorilla up. Man I’ve got to have something with a heater, well I called one of the auto dealers here in town and he said well will it go in a station wagon. I said yow it will, small crate animal weighed I think 20 pounds. He loaned me the station wagon and so when we’d get back you know well the news media would be out here to see the new animal and if you tell them when you were going to arrive which we’d try to take some picture and get you coming in with it and unloading it and that gave him a little publicity. So I got that vehicle and went down there and said you know it’s out there on the apron now we didn’t unload it cause the weather is bad they let me drive right out to the apron right out to the air craft they off loaded it there right there into the station wagon and it was this little crate no higher than this table and square and had two layers of hard ware cloth that you could see through that was the only thing the crate was up next to the back of the seat the front seat there them little stubbly fingers was hanging on to that hard ware cloth and those little eyes were looking at me and I would stick my little finger in there and he would get it like a pacifier bite on it he was just happy I’d take it away from him when I would have to start the car and start back and he would just cry. Reach over and stick my finger in there and he would just he was happy then and would bite on it. I said man I can’t drive this way and I just I don’t know about Denton Texas I just stopped and let it out of the crate. Here it comes climbing all over me you know well he’d been in this crate all the way from Hamburg Germany. All this manure all in there so every place he would touch me Gorilla manure and smell and he would grab me and he was so happy and of course he hadn’t had any rest ever since he came from Hamburg he’d go to sleep he’d lay down there against me you know driving back you know and when I’d scoot around a little bit he’d come up and go ooh ooh ooh hush were all right. So we got into Oklahoma City and cell phones didn’t exist in those days or anything so I wanted to let the media know, you know when we were going to arrive. And try to coordinate this so we could get some advertisement for the auto dealer that furnished the vehicle for us. And also we wanted people to see the animal well so I stopped at city hall to call well I had put that Gorilla back in the cage then and that wasn’t easy. He didn’t want to go back in that cage. I finally got him stuffed back in there and I went into city hall and when I walked through the door everyone began to smell I got up to the park department and I thought they were going to throw me out the window. They tolerated it until I got my calls then I went back and brought the animal back out here. And we had to test them for TB back in those days only TB test that was valid is you had to inject them in the upper eyelid well holding even a 20 pound Gorilla is not an easy thing to do and they’ve got them four hands, you know that they could grab you with and besides trying to restrain the head you can inject that into the eyelid without punching a eyeball things have changed a great deal, fortunately he done real well just he was loved by everybody and as years went on he breed and produced some dandies well as he was growing I guess he was about 65 pounds at that time. One day we had 9 Gorillas in one cage and they was all small they were immature like that they were like kids mischievous and he, I don’t know whether it was him but one of them worked around until they got the lock off there and 3 of them got out at one time. Saul Kitchener was the primate curator at that time and Saul eventually became director of San Francisco Zoo and he was there until he retired, and a brilliant man, very funny but a brilliant man. Not very tidy but boy he was smart and these gorillas got out three of them did, you know, and of course they didn’t advertise it, we heard the whooping of the orangs and the chimps. What’s happening? And we run back, there we saw three of them running that way and I stopped and slammed the cage, locked it, and went away I went after where I had seen the little male go and I ran him up in the corner there and well I caught one of the females first and I went
and stuffed her back in the cage locked it and then went after him and I cornered him up in one alley way there and he started to go up the bars in the cages where the chimps and orangs were and they were grabbing at him and I thought oh gosh if they get ahold of him we lost that gorilla. And so finally got him down on the deck and up in the corner where a door was that went into our diet kitchen there in I tried to talk to him and he had forgotten that we were buddies. I reached for him and he bit me, so you know I fussed at him and but turned him loose backed off a little ways and I talked to him some more and I thought I tried to reach for him again and he tried to bite me and I said this is not going to work so I thought well how was I going to get him I have to get him the orangs were grabbing at him and I thought if they ever get him, you know I’ve lost him. So I thought well I’ll try that ole bell ringer motion movement, so I , you know they got that critical distance I offered him a leg and as he got closer to it he’d jump and grab my leg and started to bite and I done that ole bell ringer. Whop I got him on both ears same time, wham, and he went ooooh reached up and grabbed his head and I turned him loose and I grabbed him by the hand and I said you come with me he started to bite my hand again and I slapped him on the ear again and he tried to cover both ears with that one arm and hand and I just walked him back around to the cage and put him in it. Well, where Saul had this little female, I didn’t know this little female had cystic ovaries, so she was in heat at all times. The public thought it was great , so anyway I went looking for Saul and I found him round that by the mandrel baboon cage and he was exhausted he was down on his knees had this gorilla from behind Saul was very strong and this gorilla was down and Saul happened had her hold like that and he was just exhausted he had her laying on her back holding her and she looking around at him with those big ole eyes and just hunching back against him and of course I just broke up when I saw him and can I say what I said or had I better not use that word.
SV: That’s okay.
CR: I told him I said Saul quit f----ing around and get that animal out here. And he said hey you son of a bitch, you great bastard, Saul could really cuss. Oh my he cussed at me and finally he kept cussing at me for help and I finally got ahold of her and we went to put her back in the cage and we laughed about it and he cussed me you know all day about this and he kept telling me he said I’ll get you, I’ll get you for this. Well I forgot all about that and time goes on and you forget it that’s one thing about the zoo it’s never boring. Just never and time went on and this little gorilla that I had brought in that we were such buddies he got sick so I put him in a cage by his self and I was treating him three times a day. I’ve give him medication at 5:30 in the morning when I would come in and I would give him some about noon and I would give him some just before I would go home which was normally between 8 and 9 in the evening. And so we had a night man and he was off in the zoo someplace but it didn’t make any difference I went in to give him his medication that night and he was feeling pretty good we thought were going to get out of this one alright. I went in to give him his medication and he was feeling so good he wanted to play I played with him for a little while. And then, I told him okay old buddy time for me to go home, well he wouldn’t let me go. And he wouldn’t let me out and I thought, well this is bad. I’m going to have to hurt him to get out of here. And he’ll hurt me in the process, you know when he was just getting over the problem of we’d had and I don’t want to hurt him. So I just spent the night in there with him we just laid down there on that old concrete deck and he slept against me all night when I would move he would wake up and who who and jump up shut up and go to sleep and so this was all
night long and the next morning I had that gorilla manure all over me again. And the next morning Saul come into work he came into the building early I waited for him to do and of course he was a very methodical man and the way he done things so I waited till he got his lunch box set and his coffee started and his sugar and crème and his paper towels out there the way he always did waited till he got these kind of laid out and then I hollered at him I said hey Saul he said where you at I told him, I said bring me this gorillas medication and some grapes. He come running back there what are you doing in there I said Saul go get me the medication and grapes he loved grapes I could get away from him with grapes. So he went and got stuff and well when he, he asked me I told him you look like you spent the night I said I did right in there he wouldn’t let me out I said one or both of us are going to get hurt and I didn’t want either one of them to happen so I just spent the night with him and waited for you. You know when you give him his morning medication and the grapes I’ll get out he said okay so he went to get them well he went in he called the Oklahoman He had told me he was going to get me , he told me my time was coming. And the Oklahoman come out and took a picture you know me in the cage with this animal and got that manure all over me and the little thing you know that I had spent the night with this animal. And then Saul told them yes, and it’s a male. So you had some of these comical things that went on. And at the time you didn’t know if it was going to be funny or not cause one or both of you were going to get hurt. It went well experiences were extremely valuable.
SV: Well it sounds like you had wonderful experiences. Was there someone that made a big influence on you? Anyone that you can think of that comes to your mind immediately that you worked with when you were here at the zoo.
CR: Oh my, that Saul he was so smart Saul Kitchener was his name. He was so good with, going to school at OU working on his masters and he was doing it in primate sociology and so he came to the zoo and we let him work on the great apes. This is where he’d done his research to do his thesis on and then as soon as he got his masters, you know I put him to work. And he was so good with the animals and he had a memory that was just unreal, oh he was smart. You could go into a Japanese restaurant and of course I had no idea what to get, and I would ask the girl what do you suggest, and she would rattle something off and I’d say what is it and she would start to explain it to me or something she’d look at Saul and say are you ready well he’d just rattle off back to her, same dialect and everything that she had quoted. That’s what he wanted, he didn’t know what it was either, but he would test it he was that smart. He could hear somebody and he could say it just like they wanted it. And we had zoos all over the country that would call here; well whips maid in London called him a couple of times on a great ape problem. Here you know when I left here, I was zoo director when I left here in 65 and I was making $600.00 a month. So you can imagine what Saul was making. This brilliant man with this masters and but they would call him for information and animal dealers called him all the time, say I’ve got this kind of animal and they would describe it to him and he would say oh yowl this is what it is and they would say could you give me a specific name and he would tell them what it was. Can you spell it and he would spell it for them he was just unreal. But he was kind of insecure about moving and I told him I said Saul, you need to go where you can work your way up into a very good job and this is not the place. And so finally a curator of mammals opened up at Lincoln Park Chicago. And the director was a friend of mine and called him I told him sure I’ve got a guy who would make you look good and would be great for the
facility. He said would he come up and I said sure he’ll come up and talk it over with you. So he got the job there and he was at Chicago for some time I don’t remember how many years, then he went to San Francisco as director. Brilliant man.
SV: Well, I know the zoo you said you have not been to the zoo in a while but I know you have heard and seen the growth.
CR: Oh yes they’ve done wonderful things here. They really have the strides that have been made and the public that has been reached with you know what can be done with these funds and they would support this with a bond issue or something like that and then they would come out and see what that money was going for and they were impressed. They thought they were getting there monies worth so we really never had a bond issue defeated and then we formed the Zoological Society and got very influential people on that. And Admiral Kirtpatrick , John Kirtpatrick, he was president and he had people he could call on and he would just say he’d call like BD Eddy he’d call him and say hey babe you just brought a so and so. He’d say what is that and he said you can come look at it if you want to but you bought it. He had the capability of doing this. This animal dealer that I was telling you about was an international crook one time he come in and at that time we didn’t have any flamingos I thought they were beautiful birds and oh I wanted some so bad but we didn’t have any money didn’t have any facilities. And it was on a Sunday night I got a call that woke me up and this guy was at the airport he’d flew in his PBY and he said what are you doing and I said well I’m sleeping, Arthur what do you think I’m doing. He said how many flamingos did you want, I said I didn’t order any flamingos he said well I know you didn’t but how many did you want I said what’s going on. He said well I’ve got some birds here and he said I’ve got to unload them. And he said back then flamingos went about $70.00 a piece $75.00 He said I’ve got to unload them I’ll sell them to you cheap. I said I don’t have any money. So he said well come look at them anyway, he said I want you to come to the airport so I went out there. He had these he had 32 birds in the gunny sacks and their heads sticking out and their legs tied up and two of them was sick I said oh Arthur we’ve got to separate these and he said well that leaves 30 then and so we worked out a deal I said, I’ll have to write you a hot check, he said when will it be good I said in the morning, Monday morning. He said okay so I wrote a check for him bought 30 flamingos for 30 bucks a piece. You know and I could have sold them to Denver, Fort Worth or anyone for 70. But the next morning I called Admiral Kirtpatrick he was down at the bank and I said I need some help and he said what do you need and I said well I wrote a hot check last night and he said that will get you in trouble. I said yow I know, I said but you know we’ve been talking about flamingos and I said I wrote this guy a hot check I bought us 30 flamingos he gave me one it was dying but I got the other one that was sick and it lived so I got it free. But then anyway he said what’s a flamingo going is for I said 70 to 75 dollars apiece. He said well how much did you give for them I said 30 dollars he said son come down here and let’s get money in your account. So we got a lot of animals on just guts. We didn’t have any money and the Shepherds they bought us so many different animals. I course Admiral Kirtpatrick he certainly did and he called on people.
SV: Well the community came together to help.
CR: Yes, they did and then the zoo progressed and it and if I remember correctly it was right after I left here that they started charging admission. In 65 66 something like that, because I left in the spring of 65. And it’s just grown something beautiful.
SV: Well, it’s taken on many forms and your years sound like exciting times that has helped it get to this point. Looking back at how you served your career here at the zoo and then moving on I know you are a rancher now. Did you ever think your career would kind of change as time went by from leaving the zoo?
CR: OH, once you’ve stepped in this exotic manure you’re ruined for life. You never really get away from it. You know your thoughts are always with it even where they don’t really have one at the time. But see the beauty of it and a lot of times you get some of the animal behavior people that get confused they think a zoo is just for research and for animals, hey zoos are for people. Man you know nature is for animals the desserts the oceans the mountains and the forests this is for animals they’ll all around us, but the zoo is for people where you can have these animals for the people to see and be educated about this is something you know I’m real strong on you know if you could show a herd of animals which you always got something going on like when we had 9 gorillas in one cage you always had junk going on. Like teenagers they don’t all get along at one time so the crowd was just mesmerized by this well we could have had just one mountain gorilla which is extremely valuable animal but that’s not much of a display they look at it and say that’s nice but let’s get back there where the action is. You’ve got to make the public happy and you know if you make them happy enough they’ll probably some way or another provide funds for you so that you can have the things that you want yourself to display and if you present it right and show that you have a knowledge to do what needs to be done and the dedication to follow it through and you got the politicians to fuss with continually until you can get a society run organization or even then you know you still got the governmental agencies foot kind of pressing on you all the time . But the original people that had animals in a collection were kings they were the only people that could afford it and they had these animals for their own enjoyment and then when other people saw it or other kings come by or other royalty saw it and they enjoyed it and all that was where the first zoos started. And by golly they are expensive but they’re worth it when you get down to hey we can entertain the Grandparents, the parents, the kids, the babies, and everyone in a healthy wholesome environment and you may have a mother that sees one of your animals go in to labor and she grabs her child come on we need to get down here you don’t want to see this and then you have the next mother come along and says oh looky here the miracle of birth lets watch this, then explains it to the child hey that’s great.
SV: Well, I know your input at the zoo has been wonderful for the growth of this zoo and I appreciate your time here today.
CR: Well, thank you it’s a real pleasure.
SV: Is there anything else before we end that you might want to add to this oral history?
CR: Just want the people to come out and see what they actually have here you know tourist come out here this is a great tourist attraction but you don’t get the percentage of the citizens here that you get of
the percentage of the tourist Cause the citizens just kind of take it for granted. And they could come out here like we used to have the heart patients to walk that’s the reason we built benches every so often, they’d walk little ways then sit down and let me tell you when one of them people say hey did you know so and so in that cage hey we went to look cause there was a problem cause these guys were out here every day for their therapy and when they told us that something was wrong we knew something was wrong. If the citizens will support it the way they should and would if we could just get them out here. We had when I was at Denver, we had a thing that we would set up in November every year and so we would start advertising it in the last half of December, the free days at the zoo and we gave 7 free days every year and it was we gave a free Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday we gave every day free so that regardless of how the family worked they would get some day off that they would have a day off during the year that they could bring the kids and not cost them anything and that was very popular there. The money we made from the concession stand and the bookstore was just unreal on those days. We had such good support that was generated from these free days they says sometimes we’ll give the holidays there free someone has to work on every holiday and if your given 7 free days a year that means and you give one for each day of the week that means regardless of what their job is they’re going to have a day that they can come bring their family to the zoo free and I always enjoyed that.
SV: Well, that’s important, it is something that we want everyone to be able to enjoy and thank you for your input.
CR: I’m just delighted and you’ve done such a fabulous job here it is so impressive. I’m very happy with it.
SV: Thank you.