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Page 3 There’s no question as to where this alumnus’s pride belongs A metal lion from Poland, a clay lion from Brazil.
It was 1965 when a friend of Don’s traveling through Karachi, Pakistan purchased a small, brass Pakistani-made lion in a bazaar off a small street of the city. That little lion would be the patriarch of a pride of 725 miniature lions. Guinness advised Don a few years ago that, while he has more lions than anyone to contact them, such collections are not registered until they number 2,000. “I was given a collection number,” Don says, “and at my current rate—one new lion every 20 days—my collection will reach 2,000 when I am 140 years old.” Perhaps in an attempt to entice him to stick around for as many of those birthdays as possible, Don’s wife gives him what he calls his finest lions as birthday gifts. He does, however, have other favorites. One was bought by Honduran friends who had helped Don search through San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for any kind of souvenir lion, without success. When he returned to Honduras a month later, they surprised him with a beautifully detailed white lion 7 inches tall. In his absence, they had continued Don’s quest and had found the white lion after searching through every shop in their and other small towns. Apparently Don has infected his clan with his compulsion to collect: On a Caribbean trip, his 6-year old granddaughter spotted a lion in Kingston, Jamaica, she wanted to buy for him. However, it cost more than her parents would allow her to spend, so when she returned home, she gave him one of her own Lion King lions from a Happy Meal. “That little yellow lion has a prominent position in my collection because of the story behind it,” Don says. Another time, Russian factory workers and their manager drove him all over Omsk, Siberia, until they found a lion for his collection. It happened to be mounted with an ink well and pen. Once in New York City, an Egyptian shopkeeper noted Don’s keen interest in a jade lion and quoted a high price. When Don walked away, the shopkeeper followed him and pointed out that he could use his American Express card, reminding Don that he was “from Texas where there is much oil and many cattle.” The green lion with ruby eyes now graces Don’s den, but only because he was finally able to negotiate the price down to 12 percent of the original asking price. “I got that one the old fashioned way,” Don says. “I earned it!” Yet another lion is one he spotted in the parking lot of a north Dallas mall. “I noticed a pretty lion in the back window of a Volvo,” Don remembers. “It was well made and was a very appealing forest green color. I left a note in the driver’s side window: ‘If you will sell the lion in your car, please call me,’ and I left my name and number.” That night the owner, who happened to be from Kenya, called. “He offered to give me the lion,” Don says. “I agreed to meet him for lunch the next day, when I would take the lion. He insisted additionally that he pay for lunch, as it was his honor to give me the lion.” Don’s rare finds
Lion hunting with Don “While sitting at the Mexico-California border in Mexicali several years ago, I saw a vendor hawking wares. He showed an extremely handsome tawny colored lion made from bone from cattle ground into a powder and made into a resin. He ran alongside the car while we made the transaction. “My youngest daughter traveled with her husband and 6-year-old son to Moscow, where they adopted a precious blonde, blue-eyed, 2-year-old girl to be their daughter. While they were there, they bought a fine, thin porcelain standing lion with his tail bent back over his back to form a handle and a blown glass stopper protruding from the top of his head. The lion was fashioned into a vodka flask.” Don’s isn’t the only collection, either!
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