The night after Christmas night, my husband and I ordered our two daughters into the back seat of my car and we drove to a nearby shithole town to see the lights display at a privately owned zoo. I have taken my girls to this “zoo” before, but never to see their holiday lights. Let me see if I can accurately describe this animal park. It’s large and has a much bigger variety of animals than our local American Zoological Association accredited zoo, but there is always a feeling that something less than ethical is taking place, even if there is no evidence of it. It’s privately owned by people who proudly profess their love of God and country. I always get the feeling that the animal park is a cover for a religious sect.
In addition to the animal pens and cages, they have a large open "safari" area where animals such as emu, cows, deer, and zebras roam free. When you go during their operating season, you have to opportunity to ride a decommissioned school bus with no seats or windows into the safari area and feed stale bread to the animals who are so addicted to carbs that they try to storm the bus and fight each other over an old cinnamon raisin bagel. Whenever I go there, I feel guilty, like I shouldn’t be supporting the park by giving them money, but then I figure I don’t want the animals to starve, so I spend extra to be able to give a baby goat some formula out of a bottle. I bet they feed those baby goats to the tigers and lions when they get too big.
That animal park, located in the middle of nowhere, where city and country laws concerning the owning and maintaining of wild exotic animals don’t reach, is also home to one of the largest holidays lights displays in the upstate of South Carolina, and we had never seen it. This was to be our year. We arrived at the dinner hour, but under the blanket of darkness, it felt like the dead of night. We followed a line of cars down the curvy road until we got to our destination, which given the location, the confusion, and the number of rednecks in pickup trucks, could just as easily have been a Klan rally. After trying to figure out where to get in line and pay, we finally started driving around the park, looking at the lights that were draped haphazardly over the sparsely planted trees. I expected there to be more lights or better displays, but again, after Christmas, any lights would look a little sad.
We twisted around, following the cars in line in front of us, until finally we got to the safari area. We stopped by a table to purchase food for the animals. $3 would get you a sleeve of water crackers, $6 a grocery sack of old bread, and for $10, you got the mother lode of both crackers and bread. After spending $6 a head just for admission, we opted for one pack of crackers, then drove slowly in line until we were inside the fenced in area.
That was where the driving in line ended. It was like Jurassic Park during the power outage. Herds of deer ran by the perimeter of the fence, looking for stray crackers and refuge. Cows meandered between cars as if on a cattle drive, and in the middle of a cluster of cars were a few zebras and some never before seen hybrid of zebra and donkey. As for the cars, well, there was no more line. There was, instead, a free for all. Cars were everywhere free -wheeling over hills and dips in the land, jockeying to get close enough to a zebra or Holstein to coax it closer while kids waved crackers out the window. It was like a demolition derby, but with cows. Minivans had their side doors open, children unbuckled and leaning out to feed the animals. Babies sat in front seats, unstrapped and unprotected. Pick-up trucks were making donuts, their flat beds filled with teens who hung on with one hand while throwing slices of bread with the other. It was a Christmas redneck rodeo.
I was overwhelmed at first by the chaos of the whole thing, but after a moment to orient myself, I got right into the mix. I tore around the field and even cutoff a late model Dodge Neon before I got close enough to a little cluster of cows, which, despite having eaten their own weight in dinner rolls, were happy to come over to my car and have a little snack. They stuck their heads right in the windows, looking at us with their sad dumb eyes before swiping crackers out of our hands with fat wet tongues. One cow stuck its head all the way in the back seat, causing my younger daughter to shriek and jump in her sister’s lap. My husband, who normally does not participate in what might be called shenanigans, was almost as excited to feed the cows as the rest of us.
After sitting still for a good ten minutes, we decided that our need to get out of the fray was greater than our need to feed a stale cracker to a zebra. My husband and I were so turned around we couldn’t even remember where the exit signs were, but I finally maneuvered the car out of that junkyard pile and toward the other fun that makes up the holiday lights display: the bonfire. Here again we got trapped in a line of cars all working their way to a makeshift parking lot where people could get out and buy marshmallows for roasting and cups of instant cocoa and stand around a bonfire that for all I know was made up of banned library books instead of logs. The whole family agreed that we were too frightened to get out of the car, and instead bypassed that parking area and headed towards the exit.
That;s where the holiday lights stopped being just about decoration, and instead turned to the history of Christianity. There was a series of signs with scripture quotes and illustrations from the Old Testament, followed by another series of signs and paintings depicting the New Testament, which my older daughter likened to a Harry Potter sequel. The entire religious history lesson ended with a big Nativity display, making sure each and every person who came to feed the animals got a good dose of that old time religion before they began their long drive home. Nothing sobers you up like seeing the birth of Jesus after the part where He died for your sins.
My family all agreed that the safari lights experience was just as enjoyable after Christmas as it would have been before the holiday. We also agreed that we didn’t understand why we had never been before, but we will definitely make it an annual tradition. Next time we hope to borrow a monster truck so that the Volvo SUV doesn’t stand out so obviously. That way, I won't have to worry about getting cow spit all over my vehicle.
1 comment:
Okay, let me just say THAT sounds horrible. I am glad we did not stay for that new tradition. No offense.
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