It was Easter, 1952, Easter always meant a new Easter outfit and a family trip to the National Zoo or the Smithsonian Museums. Life was good back then for a four year old boy, but that was before the Hippo Incident. That Easter changed my life forever.

For about fifteen years, every Easter brought back memories which I wished would just go away. Eventually I managed to suppress these memories deep in my sub-conscious, until teat fateful day in 1996. I was watching the Discovery channel with my wife, our youngest son, and his bride of a few months. Up from the water rose a huge back. When the head broke the surface of the water to reveal a hippopotamus, over twenty years of suppressed memories came flooding back. I couldn�t watch anymore. I jumped up and left the room declaring " I can�t watch this. The memories are just too painful." My wife and son chuckled, but my son�s wife was confused by what had just happened. You see she had never heard about the Hippo Incident.

I remember being in the Elephant House at the National Zoo in Washington D. C. when I saw the hippopotamus in the water. I was fascinated by this large beast. I stood there entranced by the sight. The hippo seemed to be just as interested in the small boy staring at him. For a few minutes the world contained just that hippo and me, as everything and everybody around me faded into nonexistence. Then the hippo slowly turned away. The contact was broken and the rest of the world was slowly returning.

Reality came crashing back, when the hippo lifted his tail and proceeded to spray me with hippo dung. We are not talking mouse here, we are talking hippopotamus. Head to foot, covered in hippo droppings. Do you remember the scene from Carrie, where she is standing on the stage at her Prom covered in pig blood. Substitute a four year old boy in his new Easter suit with hippo excrement covering him and you have a pretty good picture of the scene.

I slowly turned await from the hippo in search of help. Standing behind me, way behind me, was my family and all of the visitors to the elephant house staring in disbelief. I don�t recall much about the subsequent events, but I believe that new Easter suit was discarded in the bathroom near the elephant house. I have been told a makeshift outfit was made out of my cousin�s undershirt.

I have never been able to face a hippo since that day. That�s kind of a silly when you think about it because, if the hippo is facing you, you are pretty safe.