Adam A. Smith

Summary: A memoir recounting numerous stories from the author's years of working at the Cleveland Zoo as a tour train driver, a night watchmen, and a animal keeper with pachyderms.

Most of us who have ever been to a zoo spend most of the time noticing the animals. Rarely do we notice the other creatures in the zoo, the human beings who make the zoo work day in, day out. I found this book, sent to me by the author's brother (and a former Youngstowner), a fascinating account of the people behind the magic of zoos. It also brought back memories for me of the Cleveland Zoo. We lived in Cleveland for nine years, and I have memories of pushing my son around in a stroller in the mid-1980's, particularly up and down the hills that are a part of this zoo. One thing. If you were a county resident, you could get in free, at least when we went.

Adam Smith first started working at the Zoo as a college student in the late 1960's and continued on and off until about 1983. The book recounting these years consists of three parts corresponding to the three jobs Smith held: tour train driver, night watchman, and animal keeper with the pachyderms. Each of the sections is filled with stories of the people, and the animals, that turn driving around and around the zoo, or walking night watchman rounds or mucking out elephant stalls and hippo pools into a combination of riveting adventures or laugh out loud funny accounts--sometimes both.

One aspect of Cleveland culture was the story of going to the teamsters union hall to sign up for the union before starting work, complete with the ripped enforcers guarding the receptionist communicating, "don't mess with the teamsters." In the tour train years the funniest story was the great Tour Train Race. Along the way are fun stories of hi-jinks with the concession and ticket girls, and the zoo manager who keeps rehiring him long after college while he sorted out what he wanted to be when he grew up. Time and again, he came back to the zoo after trying a range of other jobs.

Eventually he had the opportunity to work as a night watchman, a full time job. His sketch of John Sich, the longtime watchman who oriented him, fleshed out a person not unlike many of laborers I grew up with Youngstown--a combination of a hunter who loved killing rats, a guy with street smarts ("never punch in early"), and utterly punctual and regular on his rounds. Adam took a very different approach, and the stories of his adventures with the junior rangers who basically slept through the shift or accompanied him in his mouse eradication ventures were hilarious, except for the time when a bow hunter was in the park and killed a deer, and easily could have killed him as well. And there were those frigid winter Cleveland snow storms!

Then the job as an animal keeper turned up on the job postings--and no one signed up. Adam learned that it was because of the feared Simba, an elephant who had attacked and injured several keepers and could easily kill you. What's more, she was utterly unpredictable. Perhaps one of the most edge-of-the-seat and heart warming stories was when the day came that he either would establish his dominance with Simba, or wash out as a pachyderm keeper. Coached by the diminutive woman head keeper Ellen, he succeeds, followed by the tender moment of rewarding and stroking the once-fearsome Simba. The scarier incidents were actually with the hippos.

For a memoir, this is a long book with a lot of chapters, a lot of stories. In the epilogue, written by the author's brother Rob, who edited the book posthumously, we learn that this was a much longer book. It seems that Adam Smith was a storyteller, and the truth was that I didn't mind, because his stories drew me in. At a deeper level, they were stories of camaraderie with other zoo employees, tinged with deep respect for a number of them. They were stories of love for the animals, even the ones that could endanger his life. Finally, it was a narrative that brought back memories of a part of our life I hadn't thought of for many years.

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Thanks, Craig Smoky Roberts, and Rob Smith for sending me this book. As always, the views are my own, but I do hope they reflect well on your cousin and brother, whose stories far outshine my rendering. His was a good life.… (mais)

When most people think of a zoo, they think of the animals on display. MY LIFE IN THE CLEVELAND ZOO moves the focus to the people who work at the zoo as well as providing information about the animals.
To help pay his living and college expenses, Adam Smith drove a train (actually, more of a three-car cart) at the Cleveland Zoo in the 1970s. After graduating as an English major, he worked in the media and publishing industry for awhile before deciding he really did not like being cooped up in an office all day. He returned to the zoo and became a night watchman. When a position opened as a keeper in the pachyderm house, no one else applied for it. Even though he was low in seniority (assignments were based on seniority), he applied for a got the job. His book is divided into three sections, one for each of those jobs.

In Book 1, we see the macro vision of the zoo. Smith tells of the various animal areas, the visitors, and the other employees, primarily the younger ones who drove the trains and sold tickets or refreshments. They often played pranks on each other, much to the delight of the visitors.
There were no trees to provide shade to the inhabitants of Monkey Island. There was, however, a thin telephone wire running high above it. On hot days, the monkeys would side by side in the quarter of an inch shade provided by the wire.
There is a delightful section about using imaginary tickets for inner-city children on field trips. Some paying visitors complained when they realized the children did not have tickets and didn’t believe they were on a sponsored field trip. Adam began to ask each child for his ticket and the children cooperated in the fiction with very amusing responses. It satisfied everyone.
Book 2 covers the zoo at night. It involves adventure such as intruders and the escape of a roomful of snakes from their cages. His humor comes through as he identifies the snakes as Orpeliais basstreptococcus, Leobloomorophisjerrysberkisbighereallyis, and Studebakerfloorshiftmodelis. When he discovered a massive invasion of mice in one of the buildings, he and the junior ranger decided how to attack them. “In spite of the odds against us, we were resolute. After all, we were Clevelanders and loyalty in the face of lost causes is our forte. We have the Cavs, the Browns, and the Indians.”
The micro vision appears in Book 3 where he works primarily with the hippos, elephants, and giraffes, who are not thick-skinned. He writes about the different personalities of each animal and how they are approached and treated by different employees. He learns why some of them have those personalities and what the staff does to try to care for them. He goes into much detail about what is involved in the daily care of hippos.
Throughout the book, he relates his suggestions for improving the conditions for both individual animals and their species as well as how those suggestions were received. He also points out changes that were being made nationwide to move from the empty cages to more natural living environments. Since then, the zoo has constructed a five-acre, multi-faceted elephant area.
MY LIFE IN THE CLEVELAND ZOO is written is journal form, usually capturing a single day or event. It is light, informative, and, at times, shocking and heart-wrenching. There were a few inconsistencies; e.g, sometimes referring to a person by first name, sometimes by last name. It was also repetitive in spots, particularly in Book 3. Part of that problem was a result of trying to condense the book from the Adam’s original notes. He died before the book was written. His family and friends continued his work. I’m so glad they did.
I received a free copy of this book from Goodreads First Reads.… (mais)