Of course, I always believed my mother. Always, except one time when we lived in Panama (when I was five through seven years old), and I wanted an elephant. I asked her if I could please have one, a baby that I might train to be my friend, and Mother explained that there were no elephants in Panama. I was certain she was wrong. I had seen a Tarzan movie, and Tarzan lived in the jungle and had elephant friends. We lived in a jungle, and therefore I should be able to have an elephant friend myself.
Mother explained that different animals were native to different places, and no elephants were native to Panama. I couldn’t believe her, so she patiently took a nearly-round papaya out of our fruit bowl and drew continents on it, and showed me that Tarzan lived in Africa, where there were elephants. We were far away in Central America, where no elephants had ever been.
I explained with equal patience that, obviously, elephants could simply swim across the ocean to get to Panama. Mother protested that no elephant could possibly swim that far; it would die long before it reached Panama.
I still protested and tried to persuade her that there really must be elephants. Finally, she conceded that if I found a baby elephant and persuaded it to follow me home, that I could keep it, only provided that I kept my word and never went into the jungle by myself.
Now at this time, we lived in Air Force housing which had been created by clearing wide, straight swathes out of the jungle, building a road down the middle with houses on either side, and then very wide stretches of lawn between the houses and the jungles. The lawns were mowed frequently to keep the jungle back, and the houses were built all on the second story except for the maid’s room and the laundry room on the bottom floor so that the jungle animals that wished to cross from one side to the other of the wide, cleared space would not trouble the residents (except, obviously for the poor maids, who apparently didn’t count).
All this meant that our front door was on the second floor, and the outside stair to the door was set so that I could sit on the top step and have a sweeping view to both sides of the jungle opening onto the grass, and here I would sit, after school, at every opportunity, looking for my elephant to step out and meet me.
What fantasies I had!
It was to be a girl elephant, of course, and her name was to be Esmerelda. The first thing she was to learn was to carry me to school and back on her head. I designed red and gold trappings for her to wear, then a red and gold costume for me to wear when I was with her.
Over time I invented trick after trick that I was to teach her until we could put on an entire performance to delight all the children at school. Oh, how I loved that dear elephant, and how she loved me!
To this day, I still declare that elephants are my favorite animal!