Allen Doellanson

The man wore safety glasses and heavy boots, probably steel-toed. He led one camel and then the next down the ramp into Allen's fenced side yard. In the back of the trailer several horses and possibly a bull were gated off.

"You have more deliveries?" Allen asked.

"Yeah." He pushed up the ramp, secured it, and locked the back doors. He tapped the door twice.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"You hit the door twice."

"Oh just that ambulance thing you see on the television. I'm warning the animals we're about to go." He snuck a dip of chew into his cheek. "Why camels?"

"Oh it's just something I saw in a movie."

"What do you know about them?"

"One hump or two."

He laughed, doubled over for a moment. He opened the truck door and climbed to the seat. The gears clunked, and he leaned out the window to say, "That's really a funny one!"

It began innocently, organically. The plan to demonstrate for camels because he had decided to care for a number of them. They grew to become part of his family over time. As he took the time to learn about them and the treatment they received, the way they were bought and sold, often secretly, around the world, he began to think they needed a voice. Why should he not be that voice?

They were used as a food source: their meat treated like beef in his own country. They were used to carry goods like horses. Their cousins with the single hump were growing in staggering numbers in some parts of the world. His head became sluggish as he tried to think of it all. He had been part of the problem and now he could do differently.

When he first purchased camels, two males and two females, they were imported from Kazakhstan. They were very expensive and had to be held in quarantine for several weeks. But the project had been a success thus far. He now was caring for a dozen of them.

He really liked to ride them. Sitting between the humps, they were Bactrian, was like being cradled to Allen. He was thinking of covering some of the expense by opening a riding farm for journeys through forest preserves.

"My horse, Tilting at Windmills, is like one of my children. I love my horses," Allen explained to several reporters on the courthouse steps.

"You're known as the 'Juvenile Jockey' - why is that?" someone in the back asked.

Allen laughed. "I haven't heard that one yet."

"Why did you take the horse on the freeway?" a woman at the front asked. She pushed a microphone in front of the others.

"Getting the word out about the injustice done to America's children is hard."

"The horse is in critical condition and can't stand - would you do it again?"

"Of course I would do it again," he said. "I love my horses, all my horses; I treat them like my children. I'm not sure what they are sayin' is true at all."