Thursday, December 10, 2015

A tale of two lions





When my husband was in graduate school at USC, he had a part time job at MGM. In a dark room, he spent hours copying clips of the MGM logo, Leo the Lion in full roar, while he studied in the beam of a small flash light. Later on in his movie career he was promoted to riding a bicycle around the lot delivering rush dailies. Leo is still being used to this day although digitally enhanced and his roar has been replaced with a tiger's roar. That's Hollywood for you.

In Botswana, we were on a game drive and stopped when our guide spotted a male lion eating in a thicket. Richard and Paul could see him, but I was, as usual, peering into the thick brush asking "What lion? Where is it?" Richard had just picked up his camera and had it spotted near the lion when he suddenly charged at us. He ran from out of the thicket and gave us an MGM roar...pure lion. I was terrified and thought we were toast. The lion ran up to 6 meters from us and then, thankfully, stopped short. Richard's photo caught him just before he turned and went back to his prey. 


The animals in the Chobe reserve are accustomed to the vehicles driving around and rarely bother with them. Just before our incident, we saw a self-driver...someone without a guide, out of his car very near the lion, probably trying to get a better photo. An idiot..dangerous for him and for the rest of us driving in the park as he clearly irritated the lion...you can see it in his eyes. 

For Christmas, I'm going to have a t-shirt made for Richard with the real charger from Chobe on the front and the MGM Leo on the back. 


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