The Ride of My Life

Hello. My name is Ken. And I’m a pachydermophobic. That’s an irrational fear of elephants. But I don’t think it’s irrational, and you may not either after you have read my story.

I didn’t realize I had pachydermophobia until recent years. You see, my grandkids love to visit the Birmingham Zoo, and I enjoyed going with them. But I’ve had to stop. I was okay watching the lion. No problem with the giraffe. The zebra was beautiful. Even the snakes didn’t bother me. But when we got to the elephants, my heartbeat accelerated, I got fidgety and I just wanted to move on.

It’s not as though the elephants at the Birmingham zoo looked particularly threatening. Quite benign actually. Mostly they were just trying to cool off by using their trunks to toss water over their hides, or scoop straw into their mouths. My grands love watching them, and would do so all day, but I found myself trying to tug the kids away, bribing them with an offer of ice cream from the concession stand.

Silly you say? Ah, but you didn’t experience what I did all those years ago.

It was the late 1970’s and I was working as a local TV sports anchor at a station in Tallahassee, Florida. The circus had come to town and was looking to drum up publicity to advertise their shows. As a stunt, they invited local media folks to come and participate in an elephant race, knowing we would bring cameras and use it on the air. Free promotion. The event was to take place across the parking lot of the biggest shopping mall in town. My boss thought it would be a bit undignified to send his news anchors, but sports guys are, apparently, expendable, so he sent me.

The spectacle was scheduled early in the morning before the stores in the mall opened so the parking lot would be empty. I arrived with a videographer to find a surprisingly large number of spectators gathered around a pack of about six elephants lined up behind a makeshift starting line. I should have had misgivings when the circus people, even before introducing themselves, hurriedly presented me with a waiver to sign, absolving them from any liability.

Oh well, I thought. This will be fun. I pictured it would be kind of like those pony rides you take as a child, where the trainer leads you down the path, firmly holding the reins of the horse, walking at a leisurely, comfortable pace. As they showed me my ride, his name was Jumbo, I quickly realized this was no pony. You don’t really appreciate how massively huge an adult elephant is until you are standing at its feet. They used a hoist to lift me up to the animal’s shoulders. There was no saddle, no reins, nothing to hang on to. Jumbo was bare backed. Nobody from the circus seemed concerned about this, so I wasn’t either. After all, it would be just a gentle bounce as we toddled across the pavement.

My videographer set up on the sidewalk next to the finish line, about fifty yards away. The plan was for me to fun-lovingly smile and wave at the camera as I went by. Once all the media types had loaded up, a circus clown with a megaphone counted down from ten to start the race.

When the countdown reached zero, I saw a trainer off to the side snap a whip. Suddenly, Jumbo took off as though he was being chased through the Serengeti by a hungry lion. It was only then that I came to the horrifying realization that this was, indeed, a real race. I was bouncing around like a fishing pole bobber in lake waves. The back of Jumbo’s neck was so broad that I couldn’t wrap my arms around it to hold on, and it felt inevitable that I would eventually slip off to the side. Even more terrifying, Jumbo had about a two length lead on the other elephants, meaning that when I did fall off, I was going to be hopelessly trampled by the rest of the herd.

I have never been so absolutely paralyzed with fright in my whole life. I really felt as though I was going to die. And there it would be, captured on video for the world to see. Or maybe it would be so graphic that media outlets wouldn’t even show it. It would become one of those bootleg video clips you have to find on the dark web.

The actual race took only a few seconds. I really couldn’t tell. I was just barely conscious. I guess I held on somehow, and when they lifted me down off Jumbo, I was numb all over. Couldn’t feel my legs. I must have been white as a sheet because everyone seemed to be having a good laugh at my countenance. My videographer and I would later watch the video, and what was supposed to be a happy, playful wave to the camera was anything but. My eyes were as big as half dollars and the look on my face was one of absolute shock. It was so disconcerting, my producer decided not to use that part of the video on the air, instead just showing my getting on the elephant and the start of the race. I took the next day off.

Well, that was about 45 years ago. It’s taken awhile, but I’m better now. I have my pachydermophobia under control. Although, the other day, I was reading Horton Hears a Who to my grandson, and I did break out into a sweat.