Jungle Jim, I Ain’t

 

 

Here’s some advice. If somebody from the circus ever asks you to ride one of their elephants…run and run fast!

 

In the late 60’s, when Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus used to travel by train one of the two units, either the Red or the Blue, would come to Memphis to perform each year. 

 

One year I was “selected” to cover the arrival of the train and the subsequent “circus parade” from the railhead to the Mid-South Coliseum in mid Memphis.

 

So off the rail yard I went with photographer Paul Bateman alongside.  As Ringling animal trainer Gunter Gable Williams supervised the unloading of the circus animals Paul began to shoot film and I began to take notes.

Out came the cages of lions and tigers.  Out came an assortment of horses, camels, donkeys and sch. And then out of a really big train car came the elephants.

 

As the huge elephants gathered alongside the railroad tracks, trainer Williams said to me:  “Why don’t you ride one of the elephants to the coliseum?”  I acted disinterested.

 

But then he said, “Well, one of your GIRL reporters rode an elephant last year!”

That was it.  I couldn’t let Kay Pullen get the best of me. After all, she was JUST a girl. So up on the elephant I went.  Paul threw me an audio tape recorder and he planned on walking and driving alongside filming the event.

 

So off we went…through the rail yard and onto busy Airways Blvd. headed north toward the fairgrounds and the coliseum. You must know it was a warm day…a very warm day.  I think the eventual high temperature that day was in the low 90’s.  And as the elephant swayed back and forth, I began to sweat.

 

Also the elephant’s tough hide began to scratch its way through the bottom of my pants.

 

I began to make audio recordings I was calling “Thoughts while riding an elephant.”  I remember giving the elephant’s name on tape (A name I understandably forgot later).  I remember talking about how high I was from the pavement.  But, I also remember how I began to make spitting sounds into the recorder. 

 

That’s because an elephant, too, gets hot on a warm day. And when an elephant gets hot it does something absolutely disgusting to cool itself off.  At least it’s disgusting to someone who just happens to be riding on his back. The elephant would fill his trunk with, for lack of a better term elephant spit. Then he would blow that elephant spit on hit back to cool himself off.