What did I want to be when I was young?

I wanted to be a veterinarian.  I loved dogs, cats, horses and all of the exotic animals.  In fact I once wrote to the zoo keeper for the Great Bend Kansas zoo, and asked him to mail me the following things, so that I could take care of them for the zoo, you know for sort of a backup:

• 2 chimpanzees, because having 2 is easier than having just one
• 1 monkey with a prehensile tail, really any variety will work
• a pair of zebras so that I could raise the little ones and ride them
• Indian elephant because they were more gentle than the African elephant
• a male lion, because the mane is beautiful
• a tiger, either siberian or bengal

Some optional additions that would be appreciated, to include any of the following animals:

• ostrich
• hippo
• a black bear
• really anything else that would fit on the truck.

About 3 weeks after I sent that letter off, I got a package in the mail.  As I remember, my Mom had already opened the box and the letter that was attached to it.  This was obviously prior to privacy laws, but I guess even today a mother can still open her kids mail.

When I walked into the small mobile home that we lived in, my Mother was standing at the counters edge with her fingers wrapped around a round piece of paper and than her right hand on her hip.  She was half way smiling, but I could tell that she was not entirely happy.  I think that it was a look of being perplexed, not really knowing how to respond.  She said, ” I think we need to be taking a look at your outgoing mail.”

I was just a bit confused now.  I hadn’t done anything wrong.  She said,”When did you ask the zookeeper in Great Bend to send you this stuff?”

We were not a wealthy family so the four of us kids had no money, she said “Did you send money with this order?”

I am still confused, but I knew that I had not sent any money with any letter that I had sent out.  Of course now I knew which zookeeper she was talking about, it seems as though I had found a book in the school library that had the addresses of all of the zoos in the US, but I think I only sent mail to about 3 or 4 of them.  “No, I didn’t include any money, but did he send me what I wanted?”  I went running for the window.  When I looked out, it looked no different that it had the day before and I knew that I could see that kind of stuff from that window. “He didn’t send anything, did he?”

“Well he did send some things for you, but I don’t think it qualifies for what you wanted.” She pointed to the box on the kitchen table, and I ran for it.  It was already opened, and I immediately knew that if he had sent anything living it had either escaped, or had died during transport.  There were 3 things in that box. There was a hand carved hippo shaped egg holder, and 2 monkeys that were kind of a cross between marionettes without strings, and statues.  I never figured out what the monkeys were, but I did use the hippo as a holder when I decorated Easter Eggs the next year.

For years we went back to that zoo, and each times I would try to find the keeper on duty and introduce myself and try to find that zookeeper.  I never did get to meet him, but I have never forgotten the man.  His name excapes me, but not the kindness that he showed.  His letter could have said “Holy Cow kid, get a grip, they would kill you before you killed them”.  Instead he reminded me about how precious life is, and he explained why it would not be a good idea to keep those animals at the house.

This was in 1966, or 1967, we had just moved to Hays, Kansas, and we lived in Buffalo Hills Mobile Home park.  I have seen a lot of kindness in the last 40 years.