Wednesday, November 01, 2006

From William Rector


They had a nice display of photographs at Hagerstown, including this one that I had never seen before. As luck would have it, the man who took the picure many years ago, Bill Rector, was there and was kind enough to send me this duplicate.
When adorned in this magnificence, I was often referred to as "The Great Pumpkin".

Posted by Buckles at 11/01/2006 06:27:00 AM

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Which elephant is this?

01 November, 2006 08:43
Buckles said...

Sucking up to the boss, I named her "Bonnie".

01 November, 2006 08:49
Anonymous said...

Where is "Bonnie" now, Mr Woodcock?

01 November, 2006 13:38
Buckles said...

I couldn't say, when I returned to the show in 1994 she was no longer in the herd.

01 November, 2006 13:48
Anonymous said...

I remember Bonnie at Circus World in 1974 - she was just a punk, then! She was at the end of the picket line. One day she turned toward me as I was walking out of the elephant barn and dug her left tusk into the barn wall right next to me! It startled me at first, until I realized I had just gotten through feeding Mudu her extra rations of bread & sweet potatoes and had a few bread bags in my hand. Bonnie didn't want to be left out!!!

This has nothing to do with Bonnie but it reminded me of this...I was bending over to unchain Manya for the elephant ride one morning and my zippo lighter fell out of my top pocket...Peggy reached over & grabbed it and swallowed it in an instant! Two days later, guess what I found while shoveling ponderous pachyderm poo...my lighter! I dried it out, filled it with fluid and it worked like a charm! I'll bet the Zippo company never heard that one before!!!
:-)
Cindy Potter

01 November, 2006 17:13
GaryHill said...

Bonnie came to CW from World Of Animals in Mesquite, Tx. Her name there when I had her was Konti. When the Ringling truck came on its way from Cal to Fl it had alot of Mattel stuff for the butchers to sell on the road shows. We had to chain her to the floor at the back of the 18 wheeler. As soon as I had her loaded she started perching the sides of the trailer doors and sides with her tusks.She must of punched hundreds of holes in that rig. I had never loaded an elephant into a trailer like that before and the driver wanted to do it his way so what was I going to say to change his mind!

01 November, 2006 18:42
Anonymous said...

What year was this photo taken at CW ?

02 November, 2006 10:36
Buckles said...

Blue Show '78.

02 November, 2006 10:53
Anonymous said...

Hi Gary!
Yeah, I figured as much from Bonnie she would do some funky things in the beginning stages of her training with Buckles! I had a healthy respect for those tusks! For a first-of-may elephant "man" such as me (in 1974 there were no such thing as elephant "women!")she was an interesting measure in behavior between the Asian elephants and Africans!
:-)
Cindy Potter

02 November, 2006 16:52
Anonymous said...

Very well put Cindy. You remind me of Elephant Sandy, who we haven't heard much from lately. I miss her wit.

03 November, 2006 15:47

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)