Circa 1964, when I was a freshman at Jesuit High in Tampa, my dad worked at Busch Gardens. Back then there was no monorail, no rides—just the brewery and a dream called the African Veldt. August Busch had hired Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as Animal Director to build it out. That’s how I met the man I’d come to call “the Godfather.”
After school I’d stop by as a volunteer—Busch Gardens was on my way home. I shoveled elephant dung from Sally, a baby elephant purchased after John Wayne wrapped filming on Hatari! (she was one of the runaways). I even got to ride her. If you’ve never ridden an elephant, you don’t realize how high the world looks from up there.
Marlin was busy, but he always made time for us kids—sons and daughters of the managers—especially when new animals arrived. A rhino or a lion coming in was an event. Everyone followed safety drills, and we kept our distance. Marlin called me “Kid.” In his quieter moments, he’d tell stories from Africa—soft voice, twinkle in the eye—then he’d be off again, doing a dozen jobs at once.
He was also the director of the St. Louis Zoo, and when my family later moved there he got me part-time work at Grant’s Farm. I watered and fed the Busch Clydesdales—magnificent giants up close. In the stall they’d shift their rear ends and send you spinning if you weren’t braced. Playful, but they didn’t know their own size.
Busch even hired a couple of us boys—handy with 20-gauge shotguns—to thin pigeons and crows eating the Veldt grasses. A nickel a bird. One afternoon on the plain, we heard thunder—not weather, hooves. A herd of zebra, spooked by something, stampeded straight at us. We found the only tree within sight and went up it like cats. Another day an ostrich went berserk. You don’t appreciate what that beak can do until you see it in motion. Lesson learned: respect the birds.
Sundays we’d skateboard the smooth concrete around the giant brewing vats. Somewhere in there I saw lion cubs in a bathtub—one of those images you never forget. I helped with the tropical birds too, sweeping the grounds in the evening with long cane poles to coax them into the aviary for feeding. It was an idyllic life for a kid: work, wonder, and just enough danger to keep your heart thumping.
Marlin once invited me to join him on safari in Africa. My dad said he needed me more—maybe he was worried about the cost. Either way, I stayed. I kept calling Marlin “Godfather.” He liked it. Fame never touched his manners; he was down-to-earth, patient, always smiling. He opened doors and trusted me with real responsibility. I liked him a lot.
Has any kid been luckier?
Further checking with a Google search shows no official affiliation of Marlin Perkins at Busch Gardens. I know better because I lived it.