The Tampa Tribune du lieu suivant : Tampa, Florida • 60

The Tampa Tribune, Wednesday, December 26, 1990 i.MH-Pii!isia'?iiiflwriia'.-:wt''yTi then, so we had to take that off." "TWO THUMBS UP" Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for children, which, Mary points out, "is almost free, nowadays." Attraction runs on love and memories From Page IF A sign luring visitors to pay the money and venture into the back room confidently proclaims, "This MISERY "the year's most sophisticated; suspenseful, AND SEXY ENTERTAINMENT." Guy Flatley, COSMOPOLITAN attraction is as beautiful as any in Florida." If, KSv It certainly is to Mary, who started spending her days at the museum instead of at home, a few hundred yards across the highway, when' her husband of more than a I I half century, father of her four chil -7VI dren, died in 1988. She feels that Jacob Foxbower lives in his collection. It comforts her to be around it, to take visitors on a tour of the exhibit and to talk NOW SHOWING! MAIN STREET I 1W7I NORTH MlEltfgff 61-Q6S4 about him. "I mean, I didn't miss him like I NOW SHOWING! cmo REGENCY SQUARE I mmm eo emwi would have if I'd stayed home." BRITTON sntsaiTHixFwmr 37-463 aNMLIXOOfON civ. coLiiaiesi FOWklft Mill STRUT n-22i OCNERAl CINEMA C5ITK3ALICWJT DMI MAMY NONTHOALf M.VO.

161-5058 A guided tour Gnml anma UNIVERSJTYSa.ltlt 22(0 EAST KWMHIWtf 977-1410 CMiujiOMaM NUSBORO EIGHT uoew ttisecTOjoimt. 72-790S Most of the animals occupy CHCCK WWIPUl DWtCTOWtS OH CALL FPU SHOWTTWES large wood-and-glass display cases, pei ennnrnr? When someone takes the tour, the lights are turned on, revealing a motionless zoo of bared fangs, bELEUlUHEIIiUl grasping claws, ruffled feathers and glass eyes fixed on the distance. First stop, though, is a framed display of the alphabet in wood twigs, the twigs having grown in the shape of the letters. It took eight years for Jacob to spot all the let ters and numerals, his widow says. "I think he had a sharp eye and good imagination to do that" the dinosaur.

Signs beckoned tourists from as far north as Homosassa Springs, as far south as Hudson, as far east as Brooksville, Gerald recalls. But now it is so difficult going through the red tape to put them up, "we don't even bother anymore." Out in front of this attraction, which shares its facade with a barber shop and wrecker service office, red letters painted on a white background spell out "Foxbower Wildlife Exhibit." Signs near the doors warn, "Positively no loitering when we close" and "Keep off the dinosaur." The dinosaur, by the way, is one of two in this immediate stretch of U.S. 19. A second, larger dinosaur 1 2 miles north, modeled on the old Sinclair Oil Co. symbol, houses Harold's Auto Center.

Intriguing sign In the yard, near the Foxbower dinosaur, a sign made of boards on posts beckons, "World's Smallest the paint has peeled from the plank that contained the noun, leaving the motorist in suspense, perhaps pondering the mystery for the next few miles. Goose and hawk. The exhibit possesses what are said to be the world's smallest goose, an African pygmy goose, and the world's smallest hawk, a red-thighed falconet of Southeast Asia. The attraction boasts the world's largest pheasant, a comparative bomber of birds from Malaysia; the world's rarest squirrel, a creature from the north rim of the Grand Canyon; and a number of albino animals an opossum, a squirrel, a shrew, a mockingbird and two minks, among them. Mary says her husband learned about the animals' rarity from the original owners and through independent research.

Jacob collected them during a lifetime of taxidermy, begun after he took a course as a young man in Ohio. The two-headed calf, its perfectly formed faces looking off to either side, came from a neighboring Ohio farm. Jacob saw the calf during its life span of six hours. Gerald relates that when it died, his father told the She continues the tour, a hand grasping the low chain-link fence that separates the visitor from the exhibit, pointing out the rabbits, shrews, moles, weasels, foxes, bears, snakes, turtles, bass, tarpon, grouper and hundreds of birds, in eluding swans, parakeets, macaws and a wide variety of ducks. An alli Tribune photograph by TIM JACKSON Mary Foxbower rearranges the lobby's dinosaur display.

farmer, "I'd like to fix it" The calf, 20 inches high, went with the Foxbowers on their move from Ohio to Orlando and then to Hernando County. Jacob had gathered an Impressive collection of animals, especially birds, and decided they should be exhibited. According to Gerald, his father settled on the spot after asking someone at the Florida Highway Patrol to point out a heavily traveled highway, a good spot for a tourist attraction. Visitors enter the souvenir room first. There, they can inspect a sea-shell exhibit and buy mementos of their trip to Florida, among them pot holders in the form of orange slices, puzzles in the shape of the continental United States and rubber alligators.

Rows of color slides line the front of a light table, which is unlit. An accompanying sign promises, "These albino pictures are the only ones like them." Evolving identity On a rack, post cards portray bright Florida scenes, some populat-. ed by 1950s-style bathing beauties. Across the center of each picture is a strip of advertising, "Dinosaur Wildlife." Mary explains that the exhibit went through several name changes in a series of marketing efforts. Dinosaur Wildlife didn't work, so it was dropped.

One time, the place was called Foxbower Wildlife Museum, "and they thought it was free, gator, forever on the verge of at FROM OHN HUCHIf edward tack, takes up 11 feet of floor space. A zebra skin and part of an elephant hide hang on the wall. The rare specimens, such as the four-legged baby chicken, are so designated by red arrows. Mary Foxbower makes a point of explaining that many of the animals, including those on the endangered species list and especially babies, such as the fawns were not hunted. They were killed by mistake or died naturally.

Jacob was always ready to receive them when they did. He'd ask the owners. "They ask me, 'Why do you want a dead Jacob said, quoted a HOMEClALON 5055ORHAND5 FROM THE DIRECTOR Of "BATMAN" rWDOT(M(r(K)XhmeilTOF5iEMAIlDmRW)S JOHNNYDEIT WINONA (TDfl DUNNE WEST WMW MKWIW WHY WO VINCENT FtlCEili ad AUNAIHN MwbjrOANNYELfMAN Uitajp EfitcU Gate) by STAN WINSTON EMbfUOWHAlllUnnfe A Family Comedy Winfovr Thi Family. mhmFTHCENnillYraXFKAXWNHWEJBaJUCTCT ACHRISCOlUMBLfffflMHCMAlONE MACAUIAYCULKIN KXPEXI CrNIEl STERN RAJA MARK LM SanCAUUNirHOHPSON hoiktdbrDEIffiEDiNOVImilTIUIUITON imrENFELTwTARQUINOTfflJOHNHUGHES fapsra -TiCHRISOXUMBUS wiwu' Bi.in. mi ii i nry bi I (Lao few years before he died.

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