Venice Arena 1973-74 #7

"Hope", "Sophie", "Babe", "Josky", "Barbara", "Mala" and "Minyak". The first thing I did was change some of the names to those of friends and family members, I told Sophie Fox I had named an elephant after her and she said "Oh Really!" she was underwhelmed. Hugo had already done the basics on them but only had access to two elephant tubs, so I scrounged around and found a couple out back with no tops and a few more at home in Ruskin. A few years later at Circus World I did a little elephant swapping and "Hope" wound up with Rex Williams who changed her name to "Gyp" and "Babe" went to the Columbus Zoo and if memory serves me correctly, later gave birth to a calf. The other five remained together as an act as long as I was with the show.