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Years
ago, when Pitser Garrison was the mayor of Lufkin,
a young African lion was born at Ellen Trout Zoo.
When the cub was rejected by its mother, zoo director Tim Jones
and his wife Jerri carried it to their home and raised it as well
as they could. The cub even made several appearance on Jones’s television
show, “Zoo Review.”
When the cub was older, it was placed back in the zoo and became
one of the zoo’s most popular attractions. The cub was so gentle
that Tim and Jerri often carried it home with them.
Feeling that the lion needed a name, Jones named the cub “Little
Pitser” for the mayor. One night, as he and Jerri were at home,
with Little Pitser resting in his special bed, someone knocked on
the front door.
When Tim opened the door, there stood Mayor Garrison and his wife
Bernice. “We’ve come to see Little Pitser,” the mayor announced.
The mayor held the cub and told Jones, “Don’t ever get rid of Little
Pitser,” and offered to pay for a special cage for the lion.
At that year’s Hushpuppy Olympics, a cookoff for hushpuppy cooks,
the zoo keeper showed off Little Pitser. He was soon the zoo’s most
popular resident, especially among the town’s children.
Things were going great for Jones until he looked closer at Little
Pitser one day and discovered he was a female and would never grow
a mane.
“Oh, my goodness,” thought Jones, “how am I going to tell the Mayor
that Little Pitser is a she lion.”
But Jones came up with a unique solution.
He called Bob Dooley, who ran a drive-through animal exhibit near
Dallas, and asked him
if he had any male African lion cubs. Dooley said he did, and Jones
persuaded him to trade him a male for Little Pitser.
When Dooley asked why, Jones told him.
After Dooley
stopped laughing, he agreed to make the trade if Jones would buy
him a steak dinner.
A new Little Pitser was brought to Lufkin,
and nobody—especially the mayor—ever knew the difference.
Bob Bowman's East Texas
September
19, 2010Column.
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
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