Scores of onlookers oohed and aahed as the largest elephant stuffed his trunk between bars to pick up a pile of hay just outside his cage. In the next cell over, a smaller elephant trudged slowly over a scale mounted to the floor, and the humans remarked at her massive weight, which registered on a digital readout for their amusement.

We kept on moving with the human tide until we were face-to-snout with a penned hippo, too forlorn or lazy to stand. Buddy liked the hippo, and we stood there several minutes as the traffic divided around us, some of the walkers murmuring for us to move on.

At lunchtime, we went to the eatery-gift shop, which was well-supplied with hot dogs and stuffed panda bears. The artificial pandas, of course, come from China, just like the real ones who are the stars of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Hon found a round metal picnic table, and we gathered with our sandwiches and drinks.

"You know what I like best about this zoo?" Uncle Chet said as he and Alice sipped amber brew pub beers.

"The tigers!" Buddy said.

"The women," Alice said.

"No, it’s the mixture of people," he said. "You hear all about the melting pot, but you’d never know it upstate. Back home, it’s more like a dollop of potato with a little pepper sprinkled on. But here, just look, or even listen. Black and white, old and young, and I’ll bet a third of this crowd is Asian."

We looked around us, and Hon swept the video camera in a slow arc, capturing images for us to ponder later.

"And you know what I like least?" Uncle Chet said, bringing his empty clear plastic cup down to the table. "The people. There are just too darned many of us. We’re like army ants at a picnic, devouring everything, making it impossible for other species to live in peace.

"Think of that tiger we saw this morning," he said. "What’s his home here? Maybe a half acre? And what would he have in his natural world? Miles and miles of jungle, living by his wits. Or that gorilla in the monkey prison, with the young boys beating on the glass, taunting him?

"I just can’t help wondering what the animals think, what they’ve done to be enslaved so we can look at them in their misery and buy their likenesses made of petroleum," he said as he picked up a little panda bear.

"Well, now that you’ve brought us all down, maybe we should plan our afternoon itinerary," I said.

"I’ll rein it in," Uncle Chet said. "Actually, this crowd got me thinking about the immigration bill they’re yapping about across town. Here we are, already too crowded and our so-called leaders want to create another 12 million citizens.

"When I was born, the country had 145 million people," he said. "Now, we’re more than double that, giving us half as much space per person, or animal, as we used to have. The country’s got only half the elbow room of when I was born, and millions more are pouring over the borders every year, lured by illegal job offers as fruit pickers and au pairs.

"But what are you going to do with the ones who’re here?" Alice said. "And all their kids in school?"

"Let ’em stay, but shut the borders down first. Why are we trying to police the Tigris when we can’t even control the Rio Grande?" he said.

"We’ve got to turn the spigot off. We’re talking about millions of people breaking our laws every year, creating a huge underclass, depressing wages for Americans, and the only reason they get away with it is their co-conspirators are the captains of agriculture and industry."

"Thank you, Teddy Roosevelt," I said, "Now, let’s go see a lion."

"I want to see the cheetahs," the little miscreant said.

"They’re just little lions," I said.

"I want to see a giraffe," Hon said.

"A giraffe would be fun," Alice said.

"What would be fun," said Uncle Chet, slipping a camera strap over his shoulder, "is for just one day, put all the people inside the bars, and let the other animals come around and inspect us. We might gain a little empathy."

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Cooperstown News Bureau Reporter Tom Grace is traveling with his Uncle Chet, who he says is imaginary. Grace’s column appears twice monthly.