Bob's Corner
From our weekly issue dated December 09, 2009
Someone recently mentioned the late Dr. Charles Schroeder, a veterinarian who directed the "World Famous San Diego Zoo" for many years, which stirred some memories. They include visiting the zoo with my mom way back when. When the admission was, I think, one buck.
And the entrance was completely different than now. Also, we would take a city bus from Linda Vista to downtown San Diego, and then ride a street car to Balboa Park. The street car, which we would board on Broadway in front of that big, old SDG&E building across from the Santa Fe Depot, stopped behind the merry-go-round. And it was on the edge of a canyon; not where it is now.
I remember a man, think he was Italian, who was on the zoo grounds with a monkey. I forget what the monkey did, or what the man did, but I can picture them in what's left of my brain. The zoo layout was different then too. As for Dr. Schroeder, I recall him periodically striding about the zoo in his scuffed shoes and rumpled suits while he wrote observations in a notebook.
Once I saw him near the entrance to Cat Canyon making a note about a seal that had gone off a perch into its pool when the water level was too low. The seal was dead, just lying there with blood coming from its mouth. Dr. Schroeder "humphed," made his note, and continued his rapid walk. Those latter memories are from the days I worked in the zoo for Canteen Service of San Diego; first as a "stand boy" making change and helping people use the vending machines, and then as a routeman.
It was a glorious time for me, being able to enter the zoo before it opened each day for the public, and then being allowed to remain in for well after the gates closed. Initally I drove a VW van, and later a Ford Econoline when they first came on the market. Carried boxes and boxes of candy, peanuts in the shell, Cracker Jacks, cases of milk, chocolate milk and orange drink, plus supplies for the coffee machines.
Actually I was going to write a piece called, "Two Years in Low Gear," from my time as a routeman, but never got around to it. The title came from the fact that because of the crowds, not to mention the zoo prohibitions about driving too fast or ever honking a horn, one rarely got out of first gear while navigating from one vending machine stand to another.
We had a problem for a while with someone who was hiding in the zoo after it closed. He would then break into various vending machines and empty the coin boxes. So I got to stay in the zoo quite late a few nights and ride with zoo guards, back when they wore Stetson hats and looked like Texas Rangers. It was an amazing experience because the guards drove their '56 Chevy station wagons in the dark without lights on. But they knew every bump, grate, curve and back road. I think they had trained themselves to see in the dark, like Sherlock Holmes.
The most-recent time I went to the zoo was a few years ago with our daughter and two grandgirls. The zoo admission prices about bowled me over. But it is, after all, "world famous."
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