Little known St. Louis Zoo History

You gotta love animal folk's, and the "real ones" are truly an endangered species.

I will preface this classic "zoo tale" below by telling you that the clown in the story, whom I am proud to call a friend, while living in Missouri when he worked at the St. Louis Zoo had a license plate on his car that said "moclions"

A few years ago back at the Zoo the Zoo had a good day (lots of people) and I had a poor one (act probably screwed up, equipment not working, etc.) I couldn't wait to get home at the end of the day. Traffic was clogged as people left the parking lot. In my zest to leave I made a legal, but not polite, exit that was interpreted by a guest as cutting her off. She honked her horn and all but even before I worked for Disney I didn't give her the finger or anything.

The next day my Curator showed up and wanted to know if I had an incident leaving the parking lot the day before. I told him the story -- told him it wasn't the best thing to do but I wasn't going to apologize to anyone about it. I added I've apologized in the past, and should have apologized a few more times, but not this time. About a half-hour later the head of Security and HR called and I told him the same thing. Seems this was number one priority for Director Charlie Hoessle -- find the "perpetrator". The woman had called Charlie personally to demand justice.

Charlie's a good guy but we all knew he could get you out of a mess or make a mountain out of a mole hill -- you just didn't know how he'd handle each problem. I tried to avoid him as long as I could, no sense looking for trouble. The story by now had made the rounds at the Zoo so just about everyone was curious how this would play out. A few days later I couldn't avoid Charlie, had to walk right by him as he chatted with some staff. As I passed, ready for the verbal lashing, he turned and said, "That's why it doesn't say Zoo on my License plate".

Above is the Alexander Fountain, often mistakenly referred to as the Hermann Fountain.