You still belong in a zoo

October 18, 2009 was a good day to visit the Little Rock Zoo. It was a spectacular early fall day and the critters were, in the inimitable words of  Lester “Road Hog” Moran, “on their best behav-yer.”

I feel compelled to digress for those of you who are culturally deprived in the legend of Lester “Road Hog” Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys. They are (were) in actuality, the Statler Brothers who were masters of musical parody. They recorded  two Lester “Road Hog” Moran albums which still bring the house down. Strangely enough, fellow musicians were the greatest fans of the routine which parodied a small backwoods country band. Lester always admonished “Witchita,” his guitarist to be on his best “behav-yer.”

Back to the Zoo

Click on the Lemurs for the original oCT. 2009 post.

Seems like we were originally talking about a trip to the zoo when we flew off on the music tangent. It was indeed a good, if nto perfect day, to visit the zoo. Click here for the original post.

We managed to shoot tigers, apes, antelopes, giraffes and more, not all of which we are showing. On the cute scale, there were Lemurs, always interesting. On the ferocious scale, we got a good shot of a Malaysian Tiger, a rare species.

Along with the Tiger, we shot a tiny antelope, a “Kirk’s Dik dik,” who tops out at 15 pounds when fully mature. Seeing both ends of the critter spectrum gave me pause to think about how we look at critters and perhaps at ourselves.

Click on the tiger for more story and pix.

I expanded on those thoughts on the companion story to this epistle on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com where you will see pictures of the tiger and the antelope. The story titled “It ain’t Tony.” takes a realistic look at the magnificent beast and her place in the balance of nature, which as of late, is teetering a tad too much.

Thanks,
Joe Dempsey

Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind.

http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

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What’s left at Lester. Again.

There’s not a lot to see in Lester, Arkansas, but if you have this, you don’t really need anything else. Click on the picture to see our original 2009 post.

Occasionally one stumbles across a unique set of visual circumstances that makes one grateful for cameras, reason being that what you see exceeds your command of the English language.

I rarely admit defeat along these lines, but at Lester, Arkansas, I was flabbergasted at what I saw. At the same time I rejoiced.

Since not everyone gets to shoot at Lester and precious few will ever see it in person, we are sending you back our original post to take a gander.

Click on the critter to see more of the store.

The welcome wagon was not out at Lester except for a friendly cat who decided to occupy the cab of my truck. Fortunately, human indifference included no objections to my photographing the premises, so I fired away.

This story is in two parts. The other part is on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot com. See more pictures and descriptions. The click is worth the trip because as a good friend once told me, “I’ve been to a goat ropin,’ two county fairs, a tent healin,’ and a Conway County election and I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind
http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html