In the early 70s, as an intern for the Houston Chronicle, I was sent to interview Gunther Gebel Williams a lion tamer for Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Circus. He lived in a nicely appointed rail car. And I remember a large, elaborately carved elephant tusk on a table in the car. I spent the day with him, and the next day I came and helped muck the elephant stalls to get a bird’s eye view of his life. And I watched him work lions and tigers up close and personal. It was fun and the animals were interesting.

I say this because yesterday I went to SeaWorld with my son-in-law and grand-kids and we watched other mammals perform, dolphins, whales, seals, and sea lions. It was fun, too. We had a good day in the sun. Found interesting ways to get wet. Of course, it’s not the most natural setting to observe the animals, but how many of us will ever get to see them in the wild. Not many. Still, I felt bad for the animals, especially the big whales who have oceans to roam, but now find themselves in a pool of water hundreds of miles from any large body of water, with no way to escape.

The circus is back without animals, so I wonder how long the animal shows will last at SeaWorld. Hard to tell. There’s a lot of fuss about making animals perform to entertain us, but we train dogs to run through sticks and jump over things, and there’s an AKC dog show in Houston this week. Riding horses over obstacles is an Olympic event. We ride bulls and horses in rodeos. And people catch fish only to let them go. Imagine how that feels to the fish. So, it seems as though there’s a large gray area when it comes to our interaction with animals and I’m not sure it will come into better focus any time soon. And those are just some of my random thoughts.