The Lions of Arkansas

          They roared all night. What? There are no Lions in Arkansas. How could they roar all night? Well, they did. It happened during my trip to the Lake of the Ozarks sometime around 1950. I traveled there in the backseat of my Dad's old Ford sitting alongside my Uncle Bud and Aunt Arlene. Dad was driving, Mom was beside him - navigating. We left central Iowa in late afternoon via the two-lane blacktop of Rt.69.

          How much was planned and how much was happenstance, I don’t know. This was probably Uncle Bud and Aunt Arlene’s first, and only, vacation. I imagine Mom talked them into it. I’m unclear why we were headed for Bagnell Dam. Nobody told me and I didn’t ask. I was happy enough just watching the landscape coming and going as it whizzed by at 65 mph.

          Dad’s preferred driving throughout the night because there was less traffic, and he could make better time. Before daybreak we would find a roadside motel, stay until dusk, then take off again. These motels were very different from modern motels. They were more like miniature towns consisting of 6 to 10 tiny houses called, “cabins”. Clustered around nearly all of these motels were, “roadside attractions”. These attractions varied from kitsch to crazy. I thought they were all very interesting.

          One had a gigantic snake with a large bump midway the length of its body. The keeper explained that the snake had eaten its previous keeper a few weeks earlier. Digestion accounted for why the bump wasn’t larger. He seemed sincere. I wasn’t sure. Another had a chicken that danced to music from a record player. I knew a lot about chickens. None of them danced; of course, they never heard music.

          I encountered daily mysteries on that trip.

          Once we got to Bagnell Dam there were a few more surprises. For one thing, the Lake of the Ozarks wasn’t roundish as I had expected. It looked more like a very wide, winding river. The dam, itself, wasn’t all that interesting. It was big. It was also fairly new. I believe it was built just before WWII. Maybe its newness, and the giant lake it produced is what attracted my family to visit. In those days the country was abuzz with enthusiasm for transforming the land with brave new engineering adventures.

          I have a photo of me, Dad, and someone I don’t recognize, aboard a small boat. Dad loved to fish. I’m sure that was an important part of the trip for him.

          Oddest of all, was a town in the area that I thought only existed in the funny papers: Dogpatch. It certainly looked like the town I knew from the comics. I scanned about for a glimpse of Li’l Abner, or Daisy Mae, or even Mammy Yokum, to no avail. They were probably around, somewhere.

          We left before I could spot them.

          Somewhere on the way home, we stopped not at dawn, but at dusk. This was one the few times we slept through the night instead of through the day. As I looked around, I saw cages nearby with lions inside. I immediately wanted to investigate, Mom said it was bedtime. The lions would have to wait. All through the night the lions roared. It was a strange sound, a low, rumbling kind of sound - like the earth was trembling in fear of the lions roar.

          I didn’t sleep too much that night.

          Next morning, I was up and out early. Since the lions were so close, I went to see them before breakfast. The lions looked like they could have used breakfast more than me. They looked like they could have used a lot of breakfast. They were thin. Real thin. None of the lions I’d seen in pictures looked like these. Were they skinny because they were old, or because they weren’t getting enough to eat? I didn’t know which.

          I felt very sorry for them.     

          No wonder they roared.

          We stopped at several more roadside attractions on the way back. The ones that interested me most were the ones that featured animals. Many of these were local wild animals I already knew about, raccoons, foxes, hawks and such. Even so, I still enjoyed seeing them because I didn’t often get to see them close-up. The exotic animals were the most fascinating. I remember seeing (at various stops) a camel, an ostrich, some kind of African antelope, a bear, and probably more that I’ve forgotten.

          Quite a few of these roadside attractions were completely reptilian: snakes; lizards; and alligators. The snakes and lizards were in individual cages, the alligators were mostly together in shallow pools. Quite a few of the alligators were missing limbs. Someone explained the missing limbs by saying that the alligators often fought with each other. In that case, I wondered why they didn’t just keep them in separate pools.         

          We didn’t stop much on the way home. Mostly, we drove, on - and on - and on.

          I guess I was worn out with all these new sights and sounds. I slept for much of the return trip; my dreams filled with man-eating snakes, dancing chickens, and the low rumble of roaring lions.

          The world had become larger and stranger than I ever imagined.

Coda:  When I was older, I realized that many of the animals I had delighted in seeing were mistreated. They weren’t fed properly. Their enclosures were too small. They weren’t just captured, they were imprisoned.
Most of the mistreatment probably wasn’t the result of deliberate cruelty. More likely it was the result of indifference and ignorance. Most people aren’t deliberately cruel. But too many are indifferent and ignorant – even to humans.

Word Play

The Fayre