Harry and Brookside Park, Now The Cleveland Zoo

Harry liked to ride his bike as a kid and my mom used to walk down there as a teen--it was then called Brookside Park.

When we were kids, it had animals in cages. Here are some pictures that were taken back then of the bears in the cages. Their exhibit is completely different now.






I remember when the zoo got flooded it wiped out all the reptiles they had. I felt bad about that because I liked the snakes. Monkey island was always fun. Did you know most monkeys don't like to go in water? They lived on this "island" of rock. It's pretty high with water all around it in a mote. That is one thing that is still there today.

Another area of Brookside Park that is still part of the zoo today is water fowl lake in the center. They used to have a "Children's Farm" where kids could hold rabbits and guinea pigs. I was sort of afraid to hold animals when I was little because I was afraid they'd poop or pee on me. I always liked petting furry creatures though. They also had goats and I remember one day a goat started grabbing someone's hat.

One time, my dad and I took a couple of his grandkids to the zoo. It was a very fun time! Here is a picture from that day. This is when my dad still had his hair! Brookside Park has gone through many changes over the years to become the Cleveland Metropark Zoo today.

In dad's later days, I always invited him to join Gerard and me when we went to the zoo. I knew he couldn't walk all too much, but they have big chairs chairs that we could rent to push him around in. I figured we could just do a section one day and then another section a different day. I know he would have enjoyed seeing all the changes and the animals, but he needed to be close to a bathroom and was afraid if he went out he wouldn't make it in time, even though he had the incontinence pads, he just didn't want to chance being embarrassed. It's too bad though, because it would have been such a fun time.

On the Red Pine Mountain blog, Mountain Woman invited her readers to write a one-page essay about a familiar place so I wrote about the Cleveland Zoo. Here is the link if you'd like to read about how it is today: Red Pine Mountain. For current zoo pictures, visit my other blog at www.zemeks.blogspot.com and scroll down to the bottom for a zoo slide show. There's also one on the sidebar over there too.