Fulton Avenue in Cleveland runs along the top of the hill overlooking the valley carved by Old Man Creek. There’s a fence in the brush at the top of that hill, and my father found a hole in that fence.
I don’t remember how he found it, or if he heard about it from some shady dude at The Trio Tavern, but he took me and my brothers through that fence a few times in 1976. Once through the fence, we scrambled 200’ down a steep embankment. At the bottom was a short stand of woods.
When we emerged from those woods, we were in the Cleveland Zoo.
I don’t even think my father liked zoos that much. I think he got a kick out of sticking it to the man.
I like zoos
One of my earliest memories is being at Monkey Island at the Cleveland zoo. This was a legit visit, planned by my mother with one of her lady friends who also had three kids, probably eight years before my father’s field trips. I don’t remember this part (I was four years old at this point), but I’ve seen pictures and Mom and her friend are all dolled-up for the zoo, wearing hats and dresses.
Monkey Island was an island in the sense that it was surrounded by water, but it wasn’t a naturally occurring outcropping of land. It was a massive pile of cement where dozens of monkeys had been marooned and would live out the rest of their lives, eating food thrown at them from one of the staff on a boat.
Monkey Island had a bit of vegetation stuck into the cement, some trees fashioned out of wooden poles with ropes strung between the poles, and a small house in the middle for when the monkeys needed a bit of privacy. But in my memory, the monkeys weren’t too concerned with privacy. Baby monkeys suckled at their mother’s teat, and a couple of boy monkeys played with their genitals. My first lesson in the facts of life.
The monkeys made the most of what their world had to offer, climbing ropes, chasing each other along the water’s edge, or just kicking back and watching the costumed apes parade past on the other side of the water.
So yeah, I guess I’ve always liked zoos.
This past year, I visited the Nashville Zoo and the West Palm Beach Zoo. Both are modern, have natural enclosures for the animals, and educational opportunities. We were able to see most of everything in a couple of hours and we enjoyed the visits.
Back in the 1970s, the Cleveland Zoo had audio players at select enclosures, but you had to purchase a special elephant-shaped key to turn them on and listen. You could buy peanuts for the elephants, and kibble to toss to some of the other animals, but my father didn’t cough up any dough for that kind of stuff.
Kind of silly to sneak into a place and then spend your money inside. If anything, we should have been there to steal things. I like to think one of those monkeys would have felt right at home in our house with me and my brothers.
Price of admission
The last time we snuck into the zoo that summer, we had refined the game so that we didn’t have to scramble back up the hill to where we ditched the car. My mother—the “wheel-man” in heist parlance—dropped us off near the woods on Fulton Avenue and met us in the parking lot a couple of hours later.
As we walked out the main gate after our visit, a guy with a clipboard approached my father and said, “Sir, we’re taking a survey. What do you think about the price of admission?”
My father was stumped for a minute, confused by the confrontation, and replied, “I think it’s fifty cents?”
Now the guy with the clipboard was confused. “No. Admission is two dollars. I’m asking if you think that’s too much? Would you visit the zoo more often if admission was less?”
“No,” my father said. “Two dollars is reasonable.”
But that was the last time we went to the zoo.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
This all-in-one-day thing is a hoot. And, honestly, the story ain’t bad. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but I’m looking forward to getting to it.
Oh, and I’ll be at The Moth in Ann Arbor tonight, hoping to get a chance to tell a story. Tonight’s theme is “clumsy.”
Maybe You’d Like
This week, I’ve teamed up with thriller authors with some books for you to check out in a Twisted Thrillers Giveaway:
https://storyoriginapp.com/to/4p4m2wt
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Next Picayune
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune. I’ll be back in April to let you know how it went at The Moth.
All the best,
–mickey