I Miss My Pets

16,200+ Pet Iguana Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free ...

Yes, they like to ride around on your shoulder.

This is the first time since I was six years old or so that we haven’t had any pets to share our life.

Looking back on it: cats, dog, turtle (we used to take him on vacation with us)… a wide assortment of lizards large and small (for 17 years I had my iguana: he thought he was a mammal)… rats, mice, various fish… Did I miss anybody?

Now our health is shot and we can’t take care of pets. How I miss them! Even the aquarium with crickets, merrily chirping away on New Year’s Day, with the snow coming down outside.

Maybe someday we can return to normalcy.

Yes, You Can Ride a Rhino

10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW: Today's guide to the obscure ...

See? Easy as pie!

Jean-Pierre Hallet, a one-time Belgian colonial official in Central Africa, believed that just about any animal could be won over with kindness and patience. To prove it, he tamed an adult rhinoceros. He named it Pierrot and used to ride on its back. There was also a ball game they could play together. We’ve seen several videos of baby rhinos playing with humans: maybe they don’t grow out of the urge to play.

Hallet wrote some best-selling books in the 1960s, and I had the pleasure of meeting him. He was a very big man. Maybe the rhino should’ve been riding him.