I remember one Sunday, about twenty years ago, visiting the Capron Park Zoo in Attleboro, MA with my daughter and nephew. The zoo was sort of down in the heels at the time and had become somewhat dilapidated, it’s gotten a lot better since. There were very few vistors and no visible attendants. One exhibit was a group of whitehand gibbons. Besides my party, there was one other couple and a group of unkempt white boys, about 10-15 years old. The boys were taking delight in pelting the helpless animals with pieces of gravel.
After a about thirty seconds of this, I couldn’t take much more and growled at them, “Hey, don’t you know how to act!” The young couple looked embarassed and uncomfortable, but the boys seemed genuinely ashamed. (The boys were not associated with the young couple in any way.) They mumbled something about knowing how to act, looked at their feet and shuffled off. I know that is wasn’t and isn’t fashionable for people to scold other people’s children these days, but when I was a kid, everyone did it.
Of course, there were a bunch of bikers (illegally) guzzling beer under a gazebo about 100 yards away and the young couple may have reckoned that the kids probably rode in on the back of daddy’s Harley. Being as it was a Sunday, there was a probability that the bikers were “zoo daddies” (fathers who only saw there kids on Sundays.) In the even, nothing further happened.
Capron Park Zoo ... ah, memories. How about that Sun Bear, the one constantly swimming and looking like he was in desperate trouble? Seemed monthly there was an article or news story from the zookeepers, telling the public that the bear liked to swim and that he was perfectly content. I suppose he is long gone by now.