Thursday, June 06, 2013

Elephant Men #1 (From Buckles)

Posted by Buckles at 6/06/2013 05:39:00 AM

5 comments:

Bob Cline said...

Was this taken at Circus World Museum ?

Bob

06 June, 2013 14:47
JACKIE said...

Iwas wondering the same as it is the Hemisphere wagon is it not.

06 June, 2013 22:11
Buckles said...

This is Rex Williams with a team of Pete and Norma's elephants at the Sarasota Museum on a Dave Garoway Morning TV Show.

07 June, 2013 00:00
BARBARA WOODCOCK said...

This was the "HEMISPHERE WAGON." This was the first time that it was moved since it had been placed in the museum. Everyone seamed very excited at the time, moving it out the museum with a team of bulls. We did the "Dave Garoway TV Show." They used Norma "Davenport" Cristiani's elephants. And all of the Cristiani elephants. We did the walking long mount. I was on the lead bull. I had a picture of the long mount, with the one of Rex. But Buckles didn't come across it.......Barbara......

07 June, 2013 00:23
BARBARA WOODCOCK said...

While we are on the subject of elephant men...... I told Buckles that I feel I should qualify as an elephant man....... As I used to work elephants on the lot at night. I mentioned it before I believe. The only thing I forgot to mention that I started out pulling the stone bolt sled that carried stakes as they were pulled out of the ground. I used "Luna" she was a good bull,(blind in one eye) Then I went on to my first team. Darn memory plays tricks on you some times. I believe it was "Mytrle & Tillie" Then I went on to " Cutie & Trixie." ( Once "Cutie" hit me so hard before I could hit the ground, She hit me again and knocked me on the ground.)(My fault.) Then Rex put me on Lucy's team. She was a real good worker. But you did not hit her. She knew what she was doing better than you did and she knew it..... Jean Allen was certainly an elephant man.......I feel odd sometimes putting these old memories on the blog, But Buckles keeps encouraging me to.......O yes, I think I mentioned this before I didn't even get the two dollars a night that the working men got. (And we sure needed it.).....With the teams I pulled the seat wagons. And that was hard because you had to go way past where you were going to turn, so you didn't hit the side poles. If I just touched a pole Rex would raise hell with me. He would say. "You are dumber than those bears." I never did figure out what he meant exactly. I thought bears were pretty smart. But in those days I didn't question him.......Then I would also pull wagons as they were loaded to the front of the lot for the trucks to take them to the train.....Boy it was murder when it rained. There were no head pieces or anything to hold to only their ears. With all the mud it was a mess. And some times you didn't have a hook up man. So you had to get off your bull, hook your own wagon and get back on your bull. It was real tough when your knees were knocking with fear. But you couldn't let your animals know it. I would ALWAYS ask Rex if he was watching me. And he always said he was.......BUT I KNEW HE WASN'T........I did learn to work elephants.......Barbara......

07 June, 2013 01:12

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