First trip to the zoo

When I was little, my brother took me to the zoo for my first time. To this day, I wonder why a high school student would want to be caught in public with his dorky little brother, but for some reason, he decided to take me. Maybe he was building up good will and hoping my mom and dad would let him use the car that weekend.

In any case, I was thrilled to go and wanted to document every part of the day. I had a manual Kodak camera full of film, and I wasn't afraid to use it. All throughout the day, I took pictures of all the exhibits. I probably looked like the biggest goof ball running from cage to cage in my thigh high socks and Cub Scouts baseball cap.

The two days waiting for the pictures to be developed were agony. I had visions of becoming a National Geographic photographer and was sure I got some sweet shots worthy of publishing. As soon as my mom brought them home, I tore open the envelope to see my masterpieces.

What I found was an entirely different story. I had 36 prime shots that looked just like this:



On a rare occasion, I was able to get a shot over the fence. But without a zoom on my cheap-o camera, they turned out something like this:



Yeah ... little did I know I would get a face full of fence. Now all I have are the memories of my first trip to the zoo. That, and a bunch of pictures of the fencing around the habitats.