More than Just a Pit Stop!

Carly's various graduations went off without a hitch this weekend- as of last night she had her diploma in hand. I got to spend some quality time with the family, eat a lot of high-calorie meals and see various parts of Indy that I haven't been to in years, including the Indianapolis Zoo.

As with most college commencement ceremonies, Carly's was in two parts. But unlike most, one half was Friday, and the other was Sunday, as if to maximize inconvenience and the amount of time we all had to take off work. On a side note, as more and more family arrived everyone would say to Carly "Here's your graduation present!" And I was like "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to give you a gift for this. Um...I'm here. That was 300 bucks and two vacation days."

So since Saturday was wide open (and a gorgeous day), Carly had the great idea that we should hit up the zoo. It was all-around better than I remember, but one of the coolest moments was watching the elephants. We started reminiscing about the good old days when we were little kids, and we used to frequent the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing. Potter Park had an elephant named Bingo, who tragically ate a rock and later died. I'm telling you, the city of Lansing was in mourning. As Karen put it, Bingo was our Barbaro- they even mention it here. To replace Bingo they bought another elephant named Tombi, and we used to see Tombi all the time, until they closed down the elephant part of the zoo. I think there's still a little memorial plaque for Bingo there.

So- back to Saturday. The Indy zoo had a little sign with bios of all their elephants, and one of them was named Tombi. We thought "Wow, Tombi must be a really popular name for elephants." But if you read further, it says "Tombi lived at Potter Park Zoo in Lansing Michigan before coming to Indianapolis." We couldn't believe it! It was our Tombi! It was a little like seeing an old friend- not that we could pick Tombi out of a lineup or anything. I yelled "Tombi! It's Marc, from Potter Park!" but I got no response. Perfect memory my butt.

So speaking of perfect memory, if I think way, way back to my childhood, I remember going to see Bingo, Bingo dying, and then going to see Tombi. Here's the problem: Bingo died in 1979, when I was less than a year old. This puzzles me, but we talked about this effect in some of my psych classes- there are several cases in which people have memories of things they didn't experience, simply because they hear others talk about it all the time. We read about a few cases in which people have fond, fully formed memories of family pets, only to realize years later that the pet died when they were a toddler or even before they were born. I used to think those people were dumb, but know I think "Holy crap, I never knew Bingo?"

It seems like Tombi's doing all right. You can check up on her and all the other elephants on this webcam, and even see a fan page called Tombi & Friends that some very dedicated fans have put together.

So all in all, it was a really nice weekend. Now I'm here for one day, then it's off to Texas for some meetings, and then my parents are coming in town for the Joint Service Open House up in DC, which really is the coolest air show you can go to. Have a great week everyone!

Oh, and the travel package (flight and car) that I bought for my trip to Indy had a name: "Indianapolis: More than just a pit stop!" Hence the title. I figured I should probably explain that.