by Carolyn Gorton Fuller
I don't know if you do, but I do the same things over and over again the same way each time-- go to play bridge or golf or sing in the choir the same way every week.
Well, today I decided to do something different and rather than drive to Miami or fly to Paris I went to the zoo.
We do have one, you know. It's on Stock Island in that big jail complex. Open from one to three Sunday afternoons, it was well worth the trip.
If you haven't seen a cow in so long you've forgotten what one looks like, they have one there you may pat.
They also have horses and pigs and goats and ducks and turkeys-- they had two of those. I'd never seen a turkey up walking around. They looked just like their pictures at Thanksgiving. There was one mostly white who liked his own company very well and kept to himself, but there was a brown and black one whoj ust loved people and followed me everywhere trying to stand on my feet. His head felt so funny to pat and his feathers were suprisingly stiff.
Two ostriches looked down at me from limpid eyes. They are so tall and their beaks look as if they'd done a poor job of applying lipstick. Up close their legs and feet are amazing and they walked off twiddling stumpy wings.
There is a big aviary with lots of birds but the ducks and geese just walk around you or go swim in their pool making lovely ripples.
While I was trying to admire the peacocks and entertain the loving turkey I found a baby goat nibbling on the hem of my skirt.
There were two boaconstrictors all wrapped up around each other in an oil drum under a heat lamp. They were just the color of the frying chicken you get in packages at the market-- that pinkie-white.
There was a young police officer currying his horse, and several volunteers who got out baby rabbits for me to pat, but I forgot to ask them about the odd color of the snakes. Maybe they had just shed their skins.
There was even a real garden of small vegetables planted in rows around a miniature farm house, just like a West feeling I had really been far away and seen something new and different. Try it, you'll like it.
And oh yes, I forgot to say it's FREE!