Shirley Burmeister was a little girl fascinated by reptiles and amphibians.
Her parents let her keep all sorts of pets in her room if she kept up with their care.
She had a turtle, a frog, and her favorite, a leopard gecko named Rex.
At night, she imagined that Rex was “the Gecko King”.
She pictured Rex dressed in what she imagined regal 19th Century clothes to be.
She envisioned that Rex spoke to all the geckos, his royal subjects in captivity and in the
wild from as far away as Asia to the wilds of Red Bank, New Jersey.
In her creative mind’s eye, she saw a great procession of Gecko bannermen and Gecko
soldiers riding bearded dragons. She received counsel from Rex as he instructed her on
how to properly rule the land of her bedroom. They ruled the kingdom of “Shirleyville”
for 14 years until king Rex passed away peacefully in his sleep. He is interned in the
garden bed out back next to the head stone for Shemp the family Labrador.