I’ve always loved elephants; I can’t explain why. I shared this devotion with a friend of mine in Baltimore while I was growing up – Elinor. My mother always said that the reason the two of us were so wild about elephants was because both our names started with the letters “e – l.”

I loved elephant jokes, too. Example: why don’t elephants ride tricycles? answer: they don’t have a little finger to ring the bell; and here’s my all-time favorite elephant joke: what’s gray-and-white and comes in a red-and-white can? answer: Campbell’s Cream of Elephant Soup.

Once I became interested in politics as a very young teenager, I was thrilled to learn that the elephant represented the Republican Party. It was really an easy choice for me from that point on – who would ever want to become a member of a club having a jackass as its mascot?

Elinor recently sent me a copy of Trunklines – the newsletter from The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, which is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation. The mission of the sanctuary, founded in 1995 as the nation’s largest natural-habitat refuge developed specifically for endangered elephants, is two-fold: to provide a haven for old, sick or needy elephants; and to provide education about the crisis facing these social, sensitive, complex creatures.

The front cover of the Fall, 2013 newsletter celebrates the elephant Billie, who has just marked her 51st birthday. Billie’s timeline reads as follows: born in India in 1962; captured and brought to the Southwick Zoo in Mendon, MA in 1966; sold to John Cuneo and trained in Florida for the circus in 1972; performed with Joyce, Bombay, Tess, and Delhi as the “Hawthorn Five” from 1973-93; attacked her trainer and was declared dangerous by USDA and taken off the road to live in the Hawthorn barn in Illinois in a 20 X 20 stall from 1993 -2006; arrived at The Sanctuary with 7 Hawthorn circus elephants in 2006; had her ankle chain removed by Sanctuary Caregivers after positive reinforcement training in 2011.

The Elephant Sanctuary celebrated Billie’s 51st birthday October 11-12, 2013. October is “Elephant Awareness Month” in Tennessee. A “Billie’s Birthday Fun 5.1K Run” was held.

The sanctuary is made possible through the donations of supporters, and is seeking volunteers to become Eleambassadors (contact todd@elephants.com). A variety of Eleph