Tupelo MoonPie

“Are they dangerous?” asked the little boy in the front of the trolley, hoping the answer was “yes.”

“Well, none has jumped in the trolley lately” replied the tour guide, his Southern accent dripping sweet as a MoonPie. He was somewhere south of seventeen with a broad smile and buzz cut for summer. “Thank you for visiting the Tupelo, Buffalo Farm” he said as he mounted the tractor to pull the tour trolley down the rutted road. “I’ll make sure y’all’s trip is safe.”

My stomach fluttered a little as he used the only word in the English language with two apostrophes: the possessive y’all. Y’all’s. Just as sure as rib meat slides from the bone, when you hear that you know you have arrived in the real South.

On the highways of New Mexico we passed a defunct roadside animal show advertising “Deadly Mountain Lions.” The signs and part of an adobe structure are all that remains of this pre-Disney attraction. You know, the snake pits and alligator farms and little private zoos with squirrels in cages and whatnot that used to drag in road weary travelers in the 50s and 60s. They’ve all but disappeared. But time and Disney-style production values have not stopped the Tupelo Buffalo Farm. With 200 acres, 60 buffalo and an assortment of other animals, this is a pretty entertaining place.

The buffalo are healthy and free-ranging in a large tree-studded area. There are about 25 calves and no indication of artificial animal husbandry, so they seem to be figuring out how to reproduce on their own. Imagine that. This also explains the curiously named “Zedonk” resulting from the fact that donkeys and zebras hang together in the same paddock. That’s something you won’t see in Chicago.

When the trolley stops the animals sweetly amble over to our fenced enclosure to nibble kibble from our hands. Yes, that’s right, we’re fenced in. And, they’re not.

Sadly, a lion, tiger, bear and a couple of rail-thin coyotes furiously pace in chain link cages with cement floors, more like a jail than a habitat. The guide explains that they’re “rescue” animals discovered by the authorities and removed from abusive conditions.

I wonder about the guide driving the trolley around in a circle hour after hour. I wonder if he feels trapped in this place, running the same track around and around like the coyotes pacing the cage. Or maybe he was rescued from a bad situation and considers this pretty good. In any case, he seems happy enough to amble over as we put a few bucks in the tip jar. He gives us a sweet smile and climbs back on the tractor for the next trip to the buffalo paddock.