Cow Train | Peshastin, WA | July 2019
The mini-train that looped through the park in 1965 sometimes took a spur line behind some zoo cages, including the monkey house. The primates (actually apes, not monkeys) would pause in their activities — eating, grooming, playing — to sit in a line at the fence and watch us roll by. They stared at us; we stared at them. It made us kids uneasy, and on one pass a little girl burst into tears. Adults shushed and assured her everything was OK. But it wasn’t. The apes in the cage — parents holding children — looked too much like us.
[The cow train, in photo, isn’t so somber. Kids squeal with delight as it zooms through orchards and play areas at a roadside fruit stand.]
IrwinFoto 