Imagine this-
When I was a kid until I was nearly through with high school, for all intents and purposes, where I lived nobody even kept reptiles. Well, maybe a kid would pick up a turtle or something for a few days. But nobody I knew of or even heard of had bred a lizard.
All the books on lizards I could obtain (very few anyway) said that lizards were almost impossible to breed in captivity, and chameleons were impossible to even keep alive more than a few weeks.
I was the only kid I knew who kept lizards and my iguana was a real exotic and the only one I ever saw except for the occasion that I bought him and one I saw at a zoo once (got mine on vacation one year when we stayed the night in St. Louis).
There was no internet yet. I had no idea people like Bert Langerwerf were already breeding lizards in captivity. Until i was well into high school and a friend got his anole through boys life after seeing mine (again, another case of the only anoles I ever saw before that were mine- one of my dad's friend's brought mine back from Florida for me), nobody else I even knew kept lizards.
Finally around my junior or senior year, the pet shop the next town over got a few lizards now and again- baby iguanas, colotes, brown basilisk, collard lizard, anoles- I think that was about it. Until I was out of high school.
I'm really envious of kids nowadays- you can get all kinds of nice species, and captive bred for you too. And chameleons! I dreamed of even seeing one as a kid.
Plus you have the internet where you can learn almost anything you want or need to know to keep them, and can select from a huge variety to purchase online if you are patient enough. And there are discussion forums like this one where you can share your interest.
I would have been in heaven if I had all this available to me as a kid.
Most of my childhood I had 2 species to choose from (fence lizards, 5 lined skinks) and I had to go catch them myself. And because I did everyone thought I was really wierd keeping lizards, and I knew of nobody else with lizards.
Naah- I don't feel sorry for any of you.
Well, except for the jobs situations. Sorry about that.
As an aside- one thing I think about from time to time- that pet shop in st louis had sungazers when I was a kid and got that first iguana. For not much either- maybe $30 or something. I remember seeing parsons chameleons for $75 at a local pet shop in the 90s. I wish I had a time machine!
