Day 6

Tuesday, July 1st 1997.

Memory is a fascinating thing. It's said that a memory never dies, even though you might not remember it for a long time; even, I suppose, if you never remember it all - though then, would it be strictly accurate to call it a memory, rather than, say a 'fvfsdugfg'?

When I was looking at one of the photos on the web version of this story - from Day 2 - the one of me sitting on the stone wall near the BBQ - I saw in the background a pair of jeans hanging on a line strung between two trees, and suddenly remembered that they were mine, though I couldn't work out why they were hanging between trees on my second day in the US. Then I remembered they'd got soaking wet when I left them on the floor of the bathroom in Sydney as I was having a shower, and I hadn't had time to dry them, so they'd gone from Australia to Japan and then to Massachusetts before I got a chance to hang them out. What a thing, to recover such a memory because of some pixels. Anyway, this came out of thinking about jeans, because, for some reason, on my first full day at Kimba's I decided I needed to buy a pair.

One thing which was well known back in the 80's was that if you went to Russia you ought to take lots of pairs of jeans with you, because jeans were very expensive there, and you might pay for your trip selling them to the Russians. In fact this story was probably only true for Americans: at $70-80 a pair, I doubt Levis are much cheaper in Hobart than they are in Kiev. I felt, in fact, like my stereotyped 'Moscow on the Hudson' Russian tourist grabbing a cheap pair of jeans while I was in America.

During this shopping expedition one unusual thing happened. A woman at a checkout in a supermarket passed a rude remark because I was carrying Beth with me. This remains the single example of anyone ever making a remark of this sort to me, and I should add that it only came after the woman at the adjacent checkout had made a _pleasant_ remark about Beth. (I also remember that after this incident I pictured a reverse scenario - being insulted for taking groceries into a plush store.) Anyway this put a bit of a dampener on things for a little while, but not for very long. I was on holiday, was with wonderful people. Not much could get me down.

When we got back, Kimba printed out a webpage about the Philadelphia zoo, which had some white lions, and that afternoon Dan, Neeko, Kimba and I motored up to Pennsylvania to see them. On the way we passed through Delaware. There's nothing much to say about Delaware at this stage, except to remark on the odd experience of just driving through a state and out the other side a bit later on. This is something which simply doesn't happen in Australia: we don't have all these little, fiddly states. Tasmania is by far the smallest Australian State (about the size of West Virginia), but since it doesn't _have_ any state borders, I'm not very accustomed to driving over them. As for the mainland - well if the Texans ever do secede, they probably wouldn't join the Australian Union, because they'd be the _second smallest_ of the contiguous states, and it wouldn�t even work to go saying everything in Texas was bigger, because the Queenslanders and New Southwelshpeople would straightaway mention the Big Prawn, The Big Pineapple, The Big Sheep, and so on.

People say "What was the Philadelphia zoo like?" I say, "He's a nice enough guy." - but seriously, folks... The zoo at Philadelphia is very compact, and rather pretty. There were big banners up everywhere with Australian parrots on them - Eastern Rosellas in fact, if I remember right. Eastern Rosellas are a common bird here in Tasmania, and there was a story about them on the front page of the newspaper this morning. Nine abandoned Rosellas had been succesfully reared by a female Budgie, in Lauderdale. For The Mercury, a Murdoch newspaper, this story represents a considerable journalistic achievement.

The Philadelphia zoo is also very much into big cats. Despite the fact that I have postcard on the wall over that says 'Philadelphia Zoo', and has a white wolf on it, there were no wolves - for which, in truth, I was grateful. I've always been ambivalent at best about zoos, and I think seeing a wolf in a zoo might make that ambivalence dissolve into something worse. As it is, there's no point me pretending that I wasn't distressed by the conditions in which the tigers and some other big cats were kept: small, unadorned, green, concrete cells. I know Kimba has talked about his ambivalence in regards to this, and I won't go into my feelings now. I rather bad even mentioning it, as this visit was an act of great generosity on Kimba's part, and is very fondly remembered, but for that one rather haunting set of images. Some animals, particularly smaller and marine animals, seem to be able to be catered for pretty well in captivity, but a tiger in a concrete cell just can't seem right.

There were other animals who seemed to be more happily housed. The giant river otters seemed happy, but otters always seem happy to me. There was a red panda who I couldn't quite get a good look at, a polar bear who seemed pretty happy lounging on.... oh, wait on... was this at Philadelphia or somewhere else? Polar bear... there were screaming kids crowding around the windows... someone help me with this...:/

The White Lions deserve a separate mention. They were perhaps more creamy than white - or maybe off-white, but 'Off-white Lions' or 'Whitish Lions' in the publicity probably wouldn't have drawn as many visitors. Happily these felines had quite a lot more room - a sort of island surrounded by a moat. They were lounging around, much like cats of most varieties seem to do (though it does seem to me that Lions are especially inclined to this particularly inactivity, whereas the Tigers I've seen are more apt to prowl.) It was a very hot day, of course, so you could hardly blame them.

You can�t really see the big guy in this scan, but he�s crashed out behind/between the lioness on the right, and the tree.

I could tell that this visit was a special time for Kimba, and I sensed he was frustrated by that moat, and would like to have bridged the gap. It must have been especially frustrating that the large male lounged in the shade amongst the trees at the rear of the enclosure, tantalisingly visible, but never in great clarity. It was, I suppose, a similar experience for Kimba to my frustration with the wolves at Wolf Hollow, minus the business with the cheese.

Before we left we visited the gift shop, which had some very nice Lion plushies, which were nevertheless a bit large and more than I thought I could afford (at this early stage I was always thinking "What if I see a such-and-such later on and haven't got any money?" In fact I saw a such-and-such in Wisconsin, and still didn't buy it, because I thought I might eventually see another, better such-and-such somewhere else. I never did though. But this is just as well, because there was certainly no room for a such-and-such in my luggage by the time the trip was over.)

Kimba must have seen me stuck in a 'will-I-won't-I?' loop, eyeing the little wolf puppet, because when he came out later he'd bought him for me. I called him Phil, in memory of Philadelphia, and he's sitting behind me on the chair now (actually he's smooching Pawla, one of the Huskies from New Hampshire. I think she's a little old for him, but I don't interfere in the plush's personal business.) In any case, thanks again for Phil, Kimba. He's been a wonderful little mate :)

We headed back for Maryland. On the way out of Philadelphia we saw a burned-out car on the side of the freeway. I was very impressed. It's well known of course, that cars in America explode, or at least burst into flames at the slightest provocation, and that one must be very careful parking them, and closing the doors and so on. Still I had only ever seen them on tv before, and I was a little disappointed we hadn't arrived a few minutes earlier, when we might have been lucky enough to actually see it exploding.

The other thing I have to mention about the trip back, is Delaware. (Do you remember if I sneezed in Delaware, anyone? I was keeping track of which states I sneezed in at one stage.) What makes Delaware worth stopping at, according to all the roadsigns, is that it doesn't have some particular sort of tax which presumably both Pennsylvania and Maryland have; so drivers are cajoled to stop and buy stuff tax-free in Delaware. We did stop, though not because we were seduced by the advertising; we just wanted a drink. The odd thing was that everything in this shop was about twice the price that it was in Baltimore. Still - no tax, so if your objection is to sales tax, rather than to high prices per se, I guess Delaware's worth a visit :) If that's not enough reason to encourage you, it's also the first state to do somethingorother, or the place where such-and-such a thing was signed. I forget which. Sorry, that's the sort of tourist guide you get, based on half an hour on a freeway (I think I read it on a license plate actually.) Oh yes... and Kimba got a Philadelphia license plate with a Tiger on it for Robin, which was really cool. Have you got the license plate out from under the Tiger yet?