THE MONKEY DID WHAT ON THE DINNER TABLE?

I suppose I could have called this one, "A PLAGUE OF PRIMATES," or how about, "A MOB OF MONKEYS!" But then, "A SWARM OF SIMEONS!" Is kinda catchy, or, "A HERD OF HOWLERS!" But then, they weren't howlers so we are going to go with the catchy title, "THE MONKEY DID WHAT ON THE DINNER TABLE?" And yes, that is a question mark because if one sees such a deposit on the dinner table it is highly unlikely that one would even begin to think that it was the gravy, or even the cook's mystery dish.
The years pass as does the statute of limitations. People, wise and not so wise go to their rest, which being the case, I can write about the Mindanos family without fear of recrimination.
I was buying and selling wild animals for Ross Allen, the originator of the well known SILVER SPRINGS REPTILE INSTITUTE at the time of the call which went something like this: "Mr. Towne, we have thirteen rhesus monkeys that we have reared from infancy and we need to find a home for them, are you interested?"
(Who was the wise individual who said that the number 13 is unlucky?)
Yes, we were interested.
Ross Allen and I drove to south Florida, all the way down to the Everglades, to get as it turned out, a somewhat strange adventure.
When we drove down that long driveway it was quite obvious we were looking at something different than your average cozy little bungalow.
The house was built up on eight foot tall stilts to protect it from flood and it was completely surrounded, four sides and the top by a tall cage made of chain link fencing. Yep, that's right; the house was enclosed in a huge cage, an environment for the monkeys. When the Mindanos' came or went they drove through two gates. They drove through the first gate into a smaller cage, got out and made sure there were no monkeys hiding on or under the vehicle attempting an escape from the gulag. Then they closed the first gate and locked it, opened the second gate, drove through it, got out and closed the second gate and made their escape for a few hours of relative normalcy.
By the way, anybody who lives in a house with thirteen monkeys does not have the faintest clue what "normal" is.
It took us two days to catch those #$%@#&^%$%$#$% Monkeys during which time, due to the fact that we were thirty miles from the closest motel we could sleep in the truck or sleep in the Mindanos' guest bedroom "which", we were assured, "is absolutely monkey proof."
I woke in the middle of the night to feel someone trying to cuddle up to me. Now knowing Ross as I did I was sure it wasn't him, and the Mindanos' family, though a tad strange, seemed happy as a couple which left only one other answer as to who the night cuddler was. I reached over and turned on the bed lamp and there were two, not one, but two, adult rhesus monkeys staring at me while they displayed inch long canines as their way of reassuring me that the room was NOT monkey proof.
Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.
The next morning at breakfast, (Now that was an experience that lingers!) we sat and talked like normal folks as half a dozen monkeys helped themselves from the dishes on the table.
Mrs. Mindanos, as she sat there chewing her pancakes and grits, exclaimed through tears, "We are going to miss our babies so much." It was then that the big male rhesus monkey squatted in front of her and relieved himself. Mrs. Mindanos exclaimed, "Oh Booby, mama loves you doesn't she?"
Yep, sorta strange folks them Mindanos'.
Oh yes, and let's not forget Joe and Moses. Joe was their pet crow who also pooped on the table and Moses was a manic raccoon who was prone to poop anywhere he felt the urge and it seemed he felt the urge quite frequently.
Two days with the Mindanos family, two days of slipping and sliding through monkey dookus, two days of monkey screams, Mrs. Mindanos' crying, some creative cussing and monkey bites, and finally we caught the last miserable monkey and escaped the Mindanos household, er… monkey cage. Believe me folks; monkeys are not good house pets, especially thirteen of them.
Ross is long gone as are the Mindanos family but, if you drive to the everglades and travel down that long driveway you will come to a strange house. It is completely surrounded by a large cage made of rusty chain link fencing. Don't go in. Listen carefully and you might hear strange sounds, screams, screams of a horde of mad monkey spirits seeking a place to poop.

FEAR AIN'T NECESARRILY A BAD THING

I believe it was Brenda Euland that said, "The dogs of knowledge send the lions of fear running."
I like that. There have been quite a number of times in my screwy life when I was afraid. I came close to drowning once, that was a fright experience and I have had enough animal encounters, not just a few of which were enough to cause the hackles of fear to raise on my scrawny little neck.
When I was just a wart of perhaps seven or eight years old, I climbed a tree. It was one of those strange, "Hmm, I wonder what's up there?" moments in my life when my curiosity overruled common sense, and soon, quite mysteriously, I found myself Wayyy up there. Now "Wayyy up there is not a bad place to be until you look down. I looked down and froze. "Yikes, how did I get Wayyy up here?" One thing about being Wayyy up here is that when you get "Wayyy up here!" there is an opposite phenomenon called, "Wayyy down there!" The ground looked a long way down.
"What if I fall! What if I break my arm, my leg, my neck?"
I became one with the tree and that is not a Zen thing, that is fact! I originated the term, "tree hugger." I am sure I left little boy nail prints in the skin of that tree. Scared? Naw, I wasn't scared, I was terrified!
I was stuck up there. I knew that if I didn't fall and break something useful I would stay up there and starve to death. And speaking of starving to death it must be getting close to dinner time, oh God, I was going to miss dinner!
My fear of starving to death was incentive enough.
Inch by inch I worked myself closer and closer to the ground, until…?
I never knew standing on the ground could feel so good!
So, obviously I didn't starve to death and I didn't fall and break anything. I went home and was in plenty of time for dinner but do you know what? The next day I went back and climbed that tree again and I went through the same agony, the same fear, all over again.
I learned to love that old tree.

HOW TO BE YOUR CAT'S BEST FRIEND

As the years pass I am persuaded that I am becoming more catlike all of the time. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining and I don't lounge around grooming myself with my tongue or leave little dead critters such as deactivated mice on the carpet for my wife to find. No, this 'becoming cat' phenomenon is most evident in the area of afternoon naps. Cats take a lot of naps and so do I. Naps are definitely a cat thing. Naps are good.
But we are not going to discuss naps today. No, we are going to discuss cats and their abhorrence of anything snakish.
There is an ancient Arab proverb that states, "A cat, once bitten by a snake fears even a rope."
I was watching Vociferous, my bull puppy cat as he stalked whatever wee beasties should cross his path in our garden. Nothing escaped his scrutiny, the butterfly that wisely flew away upon his stealthy approach or the leopard frog that judiciously leaped into the koi pond to the dragonfly that helicoptered overhead, just beyond his reach.
Suddenly the cat's hunt was interrupted. He stopped, leaped backwards and sideways, almost collapsing onto his side in his haste.
He recovered, glanced at me with an expression of embarrassment upon his face and then, composure restored he tentatively extended his head toward the cause of his fright.
Cautiously he approached. His head moved back and forth, up and down so that he might better see the threatening snake in the grass.
He stopped; one paw slowly lifted, then, faster than my eye could follow there was a flash of movement as that paw stabbed forward tapping the short piece of garden hose coiled in the grass.
What is it that causes cats to fear anything snakish?
A kitten, even though it has never been exposed to snakes, knows the serpentine race is to be avoided. A puppy on the other hand will approach a snake no matter how deadly as though there was nothing to fear.
Could it possibly be that the cat's tendency to avoid snakes stems from its ancient forebears, such as the African wildcat?
Those ancestors must have encountered poisonous snakes, sometimes with fatal consequences but then there were the survivors that told their offspring to avoid the snake at all costs.
Another indication of this deep ingrained fear can be observed in the cat's response to the hissing phenomenon.
Many snakes hiss, thus warning creatures to stay away.
When your beloved pet is being naughty, perhaps using the end of your new $3000.00 designer sofa as a scratching post, if you hiss, what is the response?
There is the likelihood that puss will leap sideways and run away, thus saving the sofa from any further damage, or not.
Hissing is a snake thing, cats do not like snakes and tend to avoid them; therefore hissing can be a powerful deterrent to abhorrent behavior.
Understanding that there are exceptions to every rule, years ago back in Illinois my mother was befriended by a walking disaster of a cat that she called Uncle Timmy. He was a big cat, fifteen to sixteen pounds, and gray.
I called him Gimp due to the fact that he was missing a leg. He was also missing an eye and half of his tail. Parts of both ears were gone due to a combination of fighting and frost bite. He had lost enough body parts to build another cat and he was beautiful in an ugly sort of way.
Uncle Timmy loved snakes. Yes, he loved to eat them. No snake was safe from him.
The fact that there were few, if any poisonous snakes in our part of Illinois was probably one reason Uncle Timmy lived a long and snake filled existence.
I remember coming across him one time as he was finishing up a serpentine snack. The cat laid there in the grass drowsily blinking as the last three or four inches of a fox snake's tail protruded from his mouth waving a feeble farewell with little, spasmodic twitches.
From my experience Uncle Timmy was unique in his penchant for a snake meat diet but there are other exceptions such as my neighbors Siamese that likes to carry small snakes through the cat door and leave them, somewhat worse for wear, still twitching on the kitchen floor as gifts for her mistress. It goes without saying that these reptilian endowments are not all that appreciated
Thankfully, for most of us, cats avoid snakes at all costs.
Have a beautiful day and may your cats teach you.

THE RAGING TYPO

I have a paperback book reclining in lazy repose between my well worn Roget's and my dog eared Webster's. This book serves one purpose and that is to keep my feet on the ground. It is not important what the title of the book is. Suffice it to say that it is a little known book by a little known author published by a well known publishing house.
As I began reading the book, there, on the third page, hiding in plain sight, I found a typo. Two pages later, another typo leaped off the page! All I could see was that damned typo!
Well now, there I was holding a book in my hands that I had paid out good money for so I kept reading.
Next page another typo.
Suddenly I discovered that most despised animal raging within me, the critic, and I began reading not for story but to edit the book.
When I finished reading the darned thing I had discovered 163 typos and the book was 212 pages in length.
That book has taught me a lot about my craft, it taught me, (1) that if that author could be published, so could I! (2) It taught me a lot about the editing process, primarily that we cannot depend upon the publisher for the painful, seemingly endless task of editing. (3) It taught me that the author has a certain obligation to his readers and his publisher. (4) It taught me that no matter how spellbinding your story may be, typos are the sign of a sloppy writer and they can be very distracting. (5) It taught me that if that author can be published so can I!
You will likely have noticed that (1) and (5) are identical, this is to give you hope. If you sharpen the sword called "craft" and write, if you never give up, if you persist, you will succeed.