Opinion: Ticket photo of the week: A very big grave for Manyula

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A sad day in El Salvador this week.

Manyula died.

The Asian elephant arrived from India at that nation’s National Zoo in 1955, which was even before Joe Biden was a senator.

In fact, the current vice president was only a seventh-grader at the time that the symbol of the Republican Party moved into that Central American zoo.

Nearly three generations of locals visited Manyula over the ensuing 55 years and she became a friendly fixture in the memory of countless families.

Hundreds of mourners, some wearing costumes, showed up for her funeral in a very large grave beneath a very large tarpaulin festooned with flowers.

The United States did not send an official delegation headed by a vice president.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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