Dondi The Elephant

Makes me want a pet elephant!

I am a 32 year old web developer who grew up in Sebastian, Florida (I now live in the Midwest.) I recall this one crappy weekend about 25 years ago, when I was stuck in my bed with the flu and a nasty cough that kept me from being able to talk. I could hear all of my friends running around outside having fun, running from yard to yard and in the open fields of the house lots that no one had yet bought (now, down there in Florida, there isn’t a lot left to buy.) The day was wrapping up and the sun was soon going down and I felt like I had missed all of the fun that could have been had.
Just then, outside my window in the under-developed quiet retirement-like community, I could hear what sounded like a Mac Truck. I remember, head swimming with sickness, scrambling from under the sheets to stand on my bed and look out the window at this enormous semi-truck and trailer pulling into our side yard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was I dreaming? Why is there a shipping truck attempting to park in our side yard? Just then I saw this woman I never met walk past my window. She disappeared behind the end of the trailer and I could hear the sounds of my parents, this lady and some other man, talking and laughing, and the metallic sounds of the trailer being unlocked and opened. I nearly came out of my skin when I then heard what sounded like a car’s wheels locking up and tires screeching to a halt. It sounded like it must have been going over one hundred miles an hour, to make a sound like that. Then, it happened again! No body ever drove that fast down our street. What was that sound? I saw it. A real, live elephant emerged from the rear of the trailer and it was staked down in the empty house lot next to us. Within minutes the tall sun dried grass had been stomped down like a crop circle by this behemoth.
Peering out the window, I now saw dogs, a chicken (if memory serves) and a number of other animals that, to this day, I wonder if I only imagined due to the flu, all emerging from the trailer. The owners of the elephant were juggling ping pong balls together and spontaneously doing acrobatics in the side yard. I recall being so sad that I couldn’t get outside for a closer look. After a while of this, I decided to lay back down, and soon the sounds calmed down a bit too. I heard a knock at the door and in walked my mother with Phil Schat, the elephant’s owner, who proceeded to communicate with me through a spontaneous non-verbal language (on my part) invented by him to help me save my voice.
That was one of the greatest weekends of my childhood. I am probably the only kid that I know, outside of my two sisters, that ever was surprised by getting a circus in their side yard. One might wonder if secretly I am leaving out some part of the story where it ends up my parents were in the circus. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were a lower-class church pastor’s family that apparently had some very interesting friends.
Here 25 years later, it is amazing to see “Dondi The Elephant“ (always called that, as if the adjective is required to clear up any confusion about her appearing to be anything other, I guess.)