We live on a rapidly urbanizing planet, ever more enmeshed in technological artifacts, electronic communication devices and disembodied "virtual" worlds, far more separated from the natural world than any previous generations of humans. And yet, if we think about it, nearly all of us will realize that even we denizens of the 21st Century have quite a lot of contact with non-human animals, both domesticated and wild, over the course of our lives, and that some of these experiences, especially those that occur when we're young, can be highly significant, even formative. This collection of anecdotes is about one person's remembrances of his most significant encounters with animals over the decades, recounted in the context of his personal evolution. It also captures a lot of the colorful flavor of some of the larger cultural transformations of the last half century.