A Proper Hippo

This is in tribute to a proper hippopotamus called "Happy" who died three years ago today in Boston's Franklin Park Zoo. He was a most excellent hippopotamus, living peacefully and heavily to the ripe age of 32 1/2, dining noisily on bales of hay and shovelfuls of beets. During the long afternoons, when things were slow, he would swim leisurely in his tank, coming out occasionally to dry himself in the sun. "Happy" took life easily, and when he yawned, it was a twenty-two inch event. He led an aristocratic existence if ever there was one.

What Happy lacked was the fire and dash--the aristocratic temperament--that must go with a lordly life. This was his trouble. As hippopotamuses are wont, he was mild and inoffensive, eating and swimming placidly through the years at Franklin Park without becoming in the least notorious.

It wasn't a bad upbringing that sweetened Happy's temper. Although his parents were immigrants from Central Africa, Happy himself was born in the exclusive Fairmount Park district of Philadelphia on July 7, 1918. He came to Boston on a wave of hippo enthusiasm led by the Post, which collected subscriptions for him. On June 24, 1922 he arrived at Franklin Park, was dubbed "Happy" by Mrs. James Curley and then ceremoniously installed in what is now the seal tank of the Zoo. Since that triumphant day, though, his path trailed steadily downward. When he first came, photographers from the newspapers trooped to catch him performing, but he was generally too busy lolling in his tank to pose and finally they left him in peace. Happy lounged around the Zoo for almost three decades before an old family disease, "twisted gut," that killed his mother caught up with him on October 27, 1951.

Not all hippos have waddled along Happy's slippery path into anonymity. In New York, at the Bronx Zoo, an exotic quartet of two pygmy hippos and a young hippo couple (Peter II and Phoebe) have kept the local journals happy. In the St. Louis Zoo, Harry, the resident hippopotamus, became famous overnight last summer for his aristocratic distemper. It all started when the Zoo decided it would repaint the cages. The work went smoothly until the painters began work on Harry's cage. A nonconformist, Harry never liked crowds, and he didn't like the painters, the paint, or the whole operation. It upset his delicate psyche bringing on a three ton sulk and positive loss of appetite. Zoo officials, frantic at the prospect of Harry's demise, called off the painters and the St. Louis Post Dispatch was full of Harry's glory for days.

Hippo minded as St. Louis may be, the outlook for another animal in Boston is very dim. Happy passed from the municipal scene with hardly a ripple--quite a feat for a hippo. Now that he is gone, no one doubts he was a good hippopotamus, but nobody wants another. Several years ago, Mayor Hines, his eye on the hay bill, vetoed the idea of another hippo--not out of fondness for Happy--but because the breed ate too much. Only among his old friends, the Franklin Park keepers, is Happy still remembered as, "The Hippopotamus." As one keeper said, "We have no hippopotamus now. The Hippopotamus is dead."