Thursday, December 27, 2018

ROGER SMITH


Posted by Chic Silber at 12/27/2018 05:36:00 PM

4 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Might this be that same arena

27 December, 2018 17:38
Chic Silber said...


The keeper of Mabel's flame

Thanks Roger

27 December, 2018 18:48
Roger Smith said...

No, this is the Big Stage Arena, some 100 yards across the Compound from Mabel's Arena. This is where I broke in, and here are the brothers, Numa and Congo, two of the lions in the act I learned on. We had little to work with by then, and few prospects of getting new cats. These guys were a 5-act trained by Dick McGraw. Four of them had been 15-year veterans when Dick started me on them, and one had seen 9 seasons. They schemed to refuse their cues for me, and to work me into pockets I barely escaped from. But Dick gave me the answer in 2 quiet words, and these tough monkeys worked like a charm from then on.

The screen making up the front of this arena was 2 x 2 x 1/4" fused fabric landing mat, as used by our fighter planes for landing in the Pacific islands during WW II. Once they were war surplus, Louis Goebel bought 10,000 5 x 12 sheets @ $1 a sheet, and most of the Compound's cagelines and fences were made from it. See it on the cagefronts outside the arena, on the 16 cages we called the Long String.

It took me awhile to determine that the operators (never the owners), the Kabats and Scarbroughs didn't care about what we had, as they were draining the place for all it was worth. Even after their 2 years involvement with 20th Century-Fox on DR. DOLITTLE, they stiffed Louis Goebel for not a dime in payment. They were content to let foreclosure take us into auction, and closure, on October 8 & 9, 1969.

28 December, 2018 00:16
Paul Gutheil said...

May we know those words?

28 December, 2018 10:42

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