It’s Not What I Thought It Would Be . . . (93)

“Marlin Perkins and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” used to be one of the highlights of my week.  As a little girl I would glue myself to the television on Sunday evenings to watch this amazing show which, if I recall correctly, was right before “The Wonderful World of Disney.”  What a terrific Sunday night line up for children.   A bit of nature and a bit of fantasy, both coming right before bed time.  Plus, it was a good way to end the weekend and mellow out before thinking about having to go to school the next day.  Of course, I didn’t realize I was ‘mellowing out.’  I was just happy to have such wonderful shows and neat new things to see each Sunday night.

OK.  Now, fast forward several decades.  I am all grown up and living in St Louis, MO.  St Louis happens to have a world class zoo, one that had some involvement from Marlin Perkins.  I also happened to work for an international company that was having a ‘team’ get together in San Diego, CA.  WOW.  I had never been to San Diego.  Flash back to the ‘Mutual of Omaha’ show.  Maybe, just maybe if I was very, very lucky, I would have time to visit the zoo!

Great flight to San Diego and great meetings with my ‘virtual’ co-workers.  Fun to meet people that I had only ever met through cyberspace.  And what great good luck–we were all going to visit the wonderful San Diego zoo!  I could almost not contain myself, which was not very cool or appealing to some of my co-workers that were 10 or more years my junior.

We all went on a bus together. No, it wasn’t a nice, cushey, corporate type bus. Instead it was a rather well worn actual school bus with no cushioned seats, no extra springs, and no amenities (meaning, in a polite way, bathrooms). And, yes, I was quite surprised that we weren’t regaled in a more exulted manner since we had come from across the country for the meeting. Although our fabulous, international company was making money hands over fists, it didn’t have enough extra cash to send us to the zoo in style. Still, we did get to go and that was a treat in itself.

We were unloaded and set out to discover the fabulous San Diego Zoo. Well, I have to say it was not what I had dreamed of all my life. There were lots and lots of small cages with animals in them. It was nothing like the well landscaped and nature scaped living areas we have for our zoo animals in St Louis. The St Louis zoo has areas like The River’s Edge, and Sea Lion Sound, Red Rocks, and The Wild providing naturalistic settings for the animals. I may have been missing part of the San Diego Zoo or maybe the part I should have been seeing was the Safari Park. I’m not sure, but I felt let down seeing those animals in small cages all lined up next to one another.

On the other hand, there was something wonderful that I had not anticipated. The hummingbird house was excellent and such a fun surprise. I was able to see varieties I had only seen in books and it was a real thrill. Not only that, but outside with all the flowers and blooming trees, there were dozens of hummingbirds zipping around and buzzing past my head as well.

I will always credit Mutual of Omaha and Marlin Perkins for giving me a love of wild creatures and nature. His involvement with the San Diego zoo and our St Louis zoo helped set the stage for young people to experience wild life for generations past his life time.

I can’t say that I was happy to get on that dumpy school bus and leave the San Diego zoo behind, but I am proud to be able to say: I went, I saw, I was buzzed.

(FYI, Marlin Perkins dob 3/28/1905, was from Carthage, MO; Walt Disney dob 12/5/1901, grew up in Marceline, MO, not all that far from Carthage.)