Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | fall 2008

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LIFE IS A ZOO

You’ve never experienced the New York subway system unless you’ve done it with 95 pounds of photo equipment.

I don’t know whether to say I’m especially proud to be a part of this club, but at least I can say I’m a survivor.

I was in New York last spring with VISIONS photographer Jim Heemstra. We were there to do stories on two alumni, one of whom works at the Bronx Zoo (see our cover story starting on page 12). Jim
is not a guy who travels light. For my part, I had a tape recorder, pen, notebook, subway map, a lip gloss, credit card, and extra batteries for the tape recorder, all of which fit neatly into a big purse. Jim, on the other hand, had a camera bag that I literally cannot lift, a 50-lb. case on wheels that holds his lights, and a light-stand bag that looks sort of like the kind of bag you’d transport your skis in on an airplane.

I always “get” to carry the light-stand bag. It’s really not that easy. It’s heavy and bulky and hard to get through doors. I often hit people with it. Once, on an earlier trip to New York, I whacked a woman so hard in the head that I was afraid she was going to call the cops.

The alumni we met in New York were great, but nothing was easy about this trip. To start with, I managed to book the only hotel in New York City that doesn’t have an elevator. Our rooms were on the fourth floor. That’s 95 pounds of photo equipment up, down, up, down, up, down 59 steps. Not to mention our suitcases and a laptop bag.

So we were already sort of tired from the steps. And we were in lower Manhattan – a really cool location but unfortunately not anywhere near a subway station that would take us where we needed to go. I do have to say I became a pro at reading the subway map on this trip. It took us three trains to get to the Bronx, but we did it all for like a buck and a half, so I take great pride in that. I’m not going to talk about the ride back downtown, because it did not go smoothly. But we did make it back eventually and didn’t have to break down and hail a cab.

(Oh, and did I mention that we didn’t actually use any of the lighting equipment on our photoshoot at the Bronx Zoo? Yep, we hauled it out there for nothing. Not that I am bitter.)

But GOSH, we were in New York, which is always a treat. And I love a good zoo. The best part about going to the Bronx Zoo was seeing Wildlife Conservation Society photographer Julie Maher (’81 advertising design) interact with the animals. We had her out in the middle of a pond wearing hip boots and being nibbled by flamingoes (see the picture of her on page 22). Later, she struggled to hold on to a small, but very strong and squirmy, fennec fox.
And she got nose-to-nose with the biggest porcupine I’ve ever seen (named, appropriately, Stickers). Apparently Stickers is famous, but he/she let me
feed him/her peanuts and seemed very down-to-earth.

We also had a slight adventure with veterinarian Jerry Pribyl (’80 DVM) out in Las Vegas. The Friday before we flew out to meet him for this story, the Monte Carlo Hotel caught fire. Since I wasn’t staying at the Monte Carlo, and the fire wasn’t an especially big deal by Las Vegas standards, it didn’t occur to me that this would affect my travels.

Well, it did. The public relations firm that manages the Mandalay Bay, where Jerry moonlights as the shark doctor, also manages the Monte Carlo. And, as you can imagine, they had been inundated with national media requests because of the fire. So here I am, little alumni magazine editor, still expecting media credentials for the Shark Reef and access to Jerry. The PR firm was not inclined to cooperate at first, and we went through a series of unpleasant phone calls with me begging and whining and basically behaving in an undignified manner.

It all worked out in the end. We got the story, got the picture, and got the heck out of Vegas before they could change their minds.

A portion of this column was originally written for the ISU Alumni Association’s blog at www.isualum.org/blog/

About the Writer | Carole Gieseke is the editor of VISIONS.