Sit back kids and let your old uncle Ralphie tell you a story from a time long long ago, when there was no streaming television and we drank water right from our house’s faucets.
Circa late 60s, or a tickle into the early 70s; I’m not sure of the exact year. I was outside playing with my friends one summer Saturday (there was this thing called the ‘outside’ where most children between the ages of 5 and…could be found during the warmer days frolicking with their friends) when I saw a zebra lumber through the backyard of a friend I was running with that fine bright day. Yes, a zebra, in the tree-lined, dead-end environs of the Allwood section, in Clifton, NJ.
“Ralph, a zebra?!” you exclaim to my claim.
Here’s how it happened to be. Not a mere five-minute drive from the house I grew up in stands the old animal quarantine center in Clifton. Presently on this large plot of land, the city’s municipal buildings now reside, but back when I was a wee lad, the area was still being used, albeit not so often, as a place where animals came in from other countries and were quarantined for a time (yeah, they’d saunter right in with their passports, fill out the requisite forms and…I joke, I joke). In fact, many of brick stable structures (see above) still exist and house various smaller offices and such of the workings of Clifton presently. It is quite an interesting historic spot, and I have heard that Clifton was one only two of such places in the whole country at the time, but don’t quote me on this.
Anyway, the zebra I saw that day had broken free of its quarantined stable and decided to take a look-see around town…and it came up my street.
How’s that for an interesting suburban animal encounter.
I just read that Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange had their own interesting animal encounter just recently. A black bear was spotted in the county’s South Mountain Reservation, simply too close to TBZ, so the zoo closed for the day. I know the bear population in New Jersey has been encroaching mightily on us NJ citizens, so this is serious…I guess. But hey, this is a zoo after all, maybe the bear was just looking for friends, or a place he could hang to get fed and eventually be caged.
Hey, it’s no zebra, but I’ll take it.
There’s not much pf a point to this one kids, if there ever really is, other than, be kind to animals and they will be kind to you.
