Zoo

May 26th, 2024

As I write this, the lyrics to an old song drift through my mind.

“Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it’s true…” from At the Zoo by Simon and Garfunkel

My wife, Karin, told me on the Thursday before Memorial Day that we were taking our little grandson, Asher, to the zoo the following day. Apparently, she had spoken with our son, Stefan, about it. Stefan seldom has a day off, but he was between jobs, so he offered to meet us there. Stefan is Asher’s godfather, and also his male role model and mentor.

Being as it was almost the end of the school year, it was likely that the zoo would be busy on that Friday. We hoped to arrive there at opening time. Everyone else did too. There was a line of cars stretching back a couple blocks from the entrance to the zoo. Interspersed between the cars were a number of school buses. Never a good sign. Stefan and his wife, Mikaela, were sitting in his pickup truck somewhere in that endless queue. Traffic crawled forward toward the bottleneck at the gate.

Honestly, the people working at the entrance were remarkably efficient. They snatched money from the visitors and tossed them maps and receipts in return. Drivers jockeyed to find parking spaces as close as possible to the gate into the zoo proper. Once parked, the cars disgorged small children and strollers. A school bus emptied a load of boisterous kids, all of them wearing identical t-shirts to make it easy for the chaperons to track them down. Somehow, each bus contained children with shirts different from every other bus. It was like each group had coordinated with the others before embarking on this end of semester field trip.

Using her cell phone, Karin communicated with Stefan and Mikaela. She told them to meet us at the penguin exhibit. Once we got through the gate, we discovered that the penguins were not on display. That whole exhibit was under construction. We told them to find us near the flamingos.

We waited near the birds as they all stood on one leg and ignored us in their pink and orange finery. Asher was disappointed that he couldn’t see the penguins. Stefan approached him and showed Asher the tattoos on his arms. Stefan has an entire menagerie inked on his arms from the wrists to the shoulders. The images are packed tight together and drawn in such a way to show them interacting with each other on Stefan’s skin. The tattoos remind me of old Ray Bradbury stories, like “The Illustrated Man.” The casual observer almost expects the beasts to move around and mingle.

Stefan smiled at Asher and told him, “Look at the pictures. Pick an animal to see.”

We went to see the apes, and then moved on to the other animals.

My mind recalled more song lyrics as we wandered past the exhibits:

“The monkeys stand for honesty
Giraffes are insincere
And the elephants are kindly
But they’re dumb

Orangutans are sceptical
Of changes in their cages
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum

Zebras are reactionaries
Antelopes are missionaries
Pigeons plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently”

I don’t know if Paul Simon’s words accurately describe our experience. Maybe monkeys do stand for honesty. We did see an orangutan who was totally unimpressed with his accommodations. The giraffes we observed did not seem to be insincere. I don’t know if any of the zoo personnel like rum, but after watching some of them swap out the cages, I can easily imagine that lighting up a blunt during break would be very tempting. Perhaps hamsters are not the only ones turning on.

Stefan had informed us that early on that there was a line of thunderstorms heading our way from the west. It was due to hit just before noon. The skies grew gradually darker as the morning progressed. We were at the farm section of the zoo, looking at cows, when we heard the first rumbles. Stefan wanted to grab some ice cream from the dairy building. Asher got a cone of some evil neon-colored rainbow confection. We moved rapidly toward the exit. Just before the parking lot, I noticed that Asher was wearing more of the ice cream than he was eating. Much to his dismay, I tossed the cone in the trash while promising him more and better ice cream at home. It was impossible to wipe his face clean. Even now, there are traces of blue food dye on his lips.

We hustled over to our vehicles. Thunderheads blackened the western sky and there was an occasional flash of lightning. We got Asher into his car seat and shoved the stroller in the back. The storm broke literally as I was turning the key in the ignition. There were a few big drops on the windshield and then a deluge.

As I drove through the pounding rain, I heard in my head Simon and Garfunkel sing,

“What a gas, you have to come and see
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo
At the zoo!”