REX TRAILER AND THE TIGER

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” (Proverbs 18:21)

Last night around 8 as I was sitting in my living room flipping through the channels with my “remote” I came upon a fascinating interview with Rex Trailer. For those who are NOT originally from the Boston area, Rex Trailer is now about 80 and he was a huge childrens’ television personality on Boston’s WBZ-TV channel 4 from 1956 through 1974. Rex Trailer’s show known as “Boomtown” was on live every Saturday and Sunday morning. Each week there were probably about 24 kids in the show’s audience. The show always closed with all the kids standing in the middle of the Boomtown set singing the Boomtown theme song with Rex. Believe it or not, I was on Boomtown in December of 1960 when I was a first-grader.

I’m not sure what channel Rex was on last night. It seemed to be one of those “animals gone bad” shows or something like that. They had recent clips of Rex telling the story, and then the actual black-and-white footage from a terrible incident that happened on Boomtown almost forty years ago. Each week, there was a feature called “Critter Corner”. Usually, Rex would introduce the kids to a chipmunk, or a bunny; you know, something like that. Well, there was some famous tiger named “G.T.” that had been featured on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” and in all sorts of other public venues. Somehow the producers of Boomtown had arranged with the trainer to have G.T. and his trainer on the show. Since Boomtown was live and had a bunch of kids on the set, Rex WAS a bit uneasy about this, but he was assured that G.T. was well trained and was an experienced performer. The trainer had complete confidence that everything would go well. IT DIDN’T!

In talking about that awful day many years ago, Rex said what the tiger was NOT used to was being on the set with a live horse. (Rex always had his horse, Goldrush on the show with him.) In watching the black-and-white footage, it was indeed evident that the tiger was agitated and was not following and obeying the trainer very well. As Rex said, “he probably wanted to eat the horse for lunch!”
Suddenly, G.T. the tiger lunged at his trainer!

“NO, G.T. NO, G.T.” the trainer yelled as he was knocked to the floor and the tiger got on top of him.

“Help me! Help me!” the trainer yelled.

Ad Rex recounted, the cameramen watched in horror. Rex didn’t know exactly what to do, but he grabbed the tiger by his neck with all of his might, and then the tiger opened his mouth at Rex as wide as he could open it!

Well, then, they cut to another story! I don’t know exactly how things ended up, but I know Rex is still with us all these years later and no one got killed.

I gave that incident a lot of thought after watching it. You know, it’s really sort of a parable. Have you ever been “conned” into something you really didn’t want to do with the assurances that everything would be O.K., THEN had things go horribly wrong and had to try to fix the problem and take the blame? I hate to tell you how many times I’ve been “conned” like that and how many messes I’ve found myself in! It’s not too comforting when the guy who assured you that everything would be fine is on the floor under a tiger yelling, “Help me! Help me!”

Let’s give that one some thought. The next time somebody comes up to you trying to “con” you into getting involved in something you that doesn’t seem like a good idea, “just say no” and get as far away from that person as you can!