TheBanyanTree: Honey has Been Healed!

[smack58 at nycap.rr.com]

Julie, you'll see my post.  I felt many of the same emotions you felt as a child re the circus.  I never did take my children.  Just can't do it.  Hurts my heart too much.

I even have some trouble with the natural habitat zoos but they are better than the abusive situations these animals come from, thank God.  There was a show on NatGeo about a tiger, lion and bear that were rescued and they decided to keep them together because they had bonded.  It was so sweet to see these huge animals together playing, napping and eating.  They built a special refuge for them.  Even a large cabin where they all sleep, with a huge amount of grounds.  It was really cool!

Sharon
---- Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu> wrote: 

> This is a cracker of a story!:)

I agree!

> I do so wish we had Tent Revivals in Wozland, cuz I would love to attend one.

I grew up going to Methodist revivals, tent and otherwise.  It was a 
form of entertainment in a small town in the Midwest.  Every now and 
then you'd get a real fire and brimstone kind of guy who worked up the 
crowd into a repentant froth.  Not a dry eye in the place when you 
start singing the "invitation". These days I mostly hang out with 
Unitarian Universalists and Buddhists and it's hard to get either of 
those crowds into a feverish froth except maybe when the Dalai Lama 
comes to town and everyone's falling over themselves to out-Buddhist 
everyone else.  And I have several Catholic friends, but they don't 
need tent revivals because they have weddings.  With beer.  Dancing a 
rousing, spinning polka can make me feel pretty close to the heart of 
God.

> Woof, who declares that no circus animals have been injured in this
> reply, because she has never been to a circus,

My parents took us to a circus once, when I was seven or eight.  Made 
me sad, even as a young child.  We also went to a small zoo quite 
often, back when animals had cages or enclosures rather than natural 
habitat.  A whole family of rhesus monkeys lived on a blue boat in the 
middle of small pond.  I always worried about them, whether they might 
not want to get off the stupid boat for awhile and walk on some grass.  
It was all just pretty sad.

We have an exotic feline rescue center about an hour from us.  
Stunningly beautiful animals, some of which were rescued from circuses 
or just really stupid people who thought they wanted a lion for a pet.  
One seven foot tiger had lived it's whole life, until being rescued, in 
a four by eight foot traveling circus cage.  Many of them were ill 
cared for, blind, or had other major health problems.  When my kids 
were really little--and this is the very last circus I can even 
remember coming through here--the circus was along this stretch of 
highway and we could see the elephants chained to the ground.  We 
stopped to look at them, and again, to all of us, it was just sad.

And don't get me started on clowns. We've had other weird experiences 
with clowns. They creep me out.

Julie