(This is kind of from my perspective, but also not. It is partially true, but some things are not true. Anyway.)
There’s this small zoo in my town. It used to be called a fancy name that I no longer remember. It made everything seem more cool and exclusive. It might’ve been a conservatory or something. At seven years old, a big word like that makes everything exciting. But a few years ago they changed the name to make it a zoo. Now I remember. It was a game preserve.
Just in that name, I learned so much. Prior to going there, I didn’t know that you could use the word “game” to describe animals.
Anyway, to get to the GP, you had to drive off onto this inconspicuous road that branched off of a major road. It really looked like someone’s driveway, and for the longest time, there was no sign there, so unless you were looking for it, you would just drive by. They put the sign there when they changed the name, I think.
You’d travel on this series of small, winding roads. The sides were packed with tall trees. I always wondered what kinds of trees they were, because every few minutes they would look different. I was never good at remembering the types of trees.
Supposedly, hidden among that menagerie of trees were buffalo. Or bison. Every single time we went to the GP, my dad would discuss the difference between buffalo and bison with me, yet I still don’t remember. I’m not entirely sure if all of the rumors about the buffalo/bison were true. I don’t know if there are any animals similar to that that live naturally in Pennsylvania.
Another great question was whether the buffalo/bison were wild, or caged in. They weren’t in small cages, obviously. They would’ve been fenced in, so that they couldn’t run away onto the busy highways that seemed so far away. I never really bought the story that my stepmom always told, that they were most definitely fenced in. I never saw any fence. And it wasn’t like the buffalo/bison were wearing collars so that the GP could use an invisible fence like we used for our dogs at home.
After what would seem like an hour of driving, but was probably closer to about twenty minutes as my memories are distorted because I had a perilously short attention span, we would finally reach the gates. I clearly remember the parking lot, and the wooden buildings where you would buy your tickets to get into the GP.
I once went with my YMCA camp to the GP. It was my first time going there with friends instead of my younger cousins, so I was excited. I only really have two distinct memories from that trip. I remember walking through the butterfly garden with my two best camp friends, as well as many others in the group. I always thought that it was a strange name for the garden, because it didn’t attract many butterflies, besides the ugly white ones that were everywhere anyway. All of the flowers mainly attracted bees.
I have always, and still am, terribly afraid of bees. The bees in the butterfly garden were typically the “nice” ones that would die if they stung you, so they would really prefer not to sting you and would rather just fly from flower to flower and collect their pollen so they could make honey. That seemed like an okay goal to me, and I admired those bees for knowing exactly what they wanted to do in life.
I do however think that this time there were mean bees, the ones that are actually evil and just enjoy terrorizing young children. Because as we were walking through the butterfly garden that hot summer day, at least five kids were stung. Two of them were my best friends Corey and Taylor. One of them was this really awful older kid who would pick on me for being ugly, so I was happy that he was stung.
The only other memory I have was eating lunch.
Anyway, the GP had tons of animals, most of them local wildlife. There was this one section with this wolf that most of the time you couldn’t even see, because it was sleeping. It was always exciting to see the wolf.
The GP also had prairie dogs. For a long time, I confused these with meerkats, because I was obsessed with the Animal Planet show Meerkat Manor. They DID look very similar, so it wasn’t my fault. Also, my dad encouraged me to call them meerkats, which just confused me further.
There were llamas/alpacas, birds, otters. The otter exhibit thing was always interesting. It was made out of what looked like white marble but was probably just shiny concrete. The otters would float around on their backs, or swim through the water. We would always sit and watch them right before we were going to leave the GP. We would always talk to someone who worked at the GP and ask them about how certain otters were doing, because we learned their names.
Eventually we would get tired, and make our way to leave. I would be sure to stop by the gift areas, where they would sell stuffed and/or plastic versions of various animals, some of them ones that could be found in the GP. Everything was in these teepees that kind of looked like tents but were most definitely teepees. There was also this giant teepee by a lake. The lake was home to tons of ducks, and you could feed them this food that you paid a quarter for. The giant teepee really smelled on the inside, but I’m pretty sure that was because of my male cousins.
The strangest thing about leaving the GP was that you had to drive in a different direction than you came. There were plenty of winding roads, but they were DIFFERENT winding roads. There were no buffalo/bison here.
We would pass these old brick houses that were really pretty. Eventually we would come by this large open area where you could see a large pocket of trees.
Some people would get out of their cars to stand and look at the trees. They were just normal trees, but they did possess this peculiar beauty that is hard to explain. It was like the open circle was filled with this holy light sent down by God. Even as an atheist, that’s really the only way to describe it. There was this little broken wooden bench by the edge of this massive cliff, and beyond the massive cliff was the pocket of trees.
One year I decided that it was my dream to go here and take a picture of the trees during the autumn season. Even now, I get a little misty eyed thinking of what all of the colors would look like. It’s strange, because I’m a writer, not a photographer. My talent is explaining to someone who has never seen something what it looks like. A photographer shows them. But this phenomenon that doesn’t allow me to use words needs to be photographed.
But now it is a zoo. And there is construction on the road that leads there. You have to take a detour. I pass by the obnoxiously orange construction signs nearly every day, and every once in a while I’ll think about the buffalo/bison and the smelly teepee, and the meerkats that are actually prairie dogs, and the butterfly garden with no butterflies, and the otters, and most importantly the trees that begged to be photographed, and wonder what happened to that magically normal place.
