When I was a child, during, say 1959, or 1960, the Catskill Game Farm was hawked on television like crazy!!!!!!!!! So much so, that I just HAD to go there--I was a real sucker for a product, if I saw it advertised enough; an advertiser's dream, darlings!!!!!!!!!!--and so, in the Summer of, I think, 1960, my parents and I packed into the family car, drove up to Catskill, New York, where it was located, and visited it, staying in the region for a couple of days.
They had all sorts of things to do, but my favorite was the petting zoo!!!!!!!!! Animals walked about freely, were very friendly to one and all, and could be petted. I loved it!!!!!!!!! In fact, somewhere in my home archives, there is a photo of me, in shorts, and a white jacket with a red stripe, (it was very cool up there!!!!!!!) being deluged by a bunch of lambs, one of them black, who are swarming around me, trying to get at a milk bottle I was holding in my hands. I am telling you, darlings, not before or since, have I ever been SO popular!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Certainly not during Junior High, or High School!!!!!! And you have heard all about THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For years, all the word Catskill meant to me was that farm. I had no idea the Catskills was this region of resorts and entertainment. My awareness of that came much later.
This past weekend, while visiting in the Catskills, I asked Ellen, a lifelong resident of the area, about this place. She said it had closed, which saddened me, and she was right. It closed on Columbus Day, in 2006. But it had had a run of--are you ready???--73 years, having first opened to the public, in 1933!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know how many of you got to visit this place, or remember it!!!!!! But more than half a century later, it remains one of the most vivid, and happiest, memories of my childhood!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, how come I never got to see the movie "Doctor Dolittle?????????"
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