Edith! Edith Edith Bo Edith, Bonana Fama Fo Edith, Fee Fy Fo Edith! Edith!
Anyone remember the song “The Name Game”? Ahhh. the ways we entertained ourselves in the good ol’ days!
So….Mo and Edith Anne, the next leg of the Monkey Mom stories.
When Mo came to live with us, we knew he seemed a bit older. Visually we could see that he was larger than Kong had been. And the attitude! We always felt that poor Mo had been netted in the Brazilian rain forest and taken away from a wife and family. Or at least from his bio mom. He was never the cuddly, snuggly baby Kong had been.
Mo did have an astute sense of character, however. There was a neighbor boy, Dickie, who, according to my human son, had a history of trying to shoot squirrels with a slingshot. The first time Mo got within a leash length of Dickie, he made a direct leap to the boy’s stomach and chomped him. Dickie never ventured near Mo again.
Years after Mo had passed away (a stroke), we went to see the movie “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan”. It broke my heart in many ways, especially the scenes in which monkeys were confined in labs for experimentation. Nostalgia overcame me, and I started to consider monkey parenting once again. Husband number two had not had the previous monkey parenting experience, but he was sympathetic and proceeded to set aside a chunk of the income tax return and schedule a road trip to a dealership called Monkeys Unlimited.
Entering the facility, we were greeted by the sight of an adorable baby baboon dressed in a striped shirt and bib overalls (reminiscent of Waldo) climbing up and down a floor-to-ceiling chain link cage which boasted a humungous padlock. Staff informed us that the little guy was getting close to being able to pick this lock, too, so they were trying to come up with plan B (B obviously standing for Bright Baby Baboon).
In the next room was a bank of cages on the wall into which a variety of breeds of monkeys were grouped. We were given monkey chow to feed them, and we proceeded to make friends…with all but one, Leon (more about him later).
We found that the black and white colobus monkeys were pleasant, but a bit unwieldy. The guenons were a gentle, unusually polite group. We would hold a handful of food outside their cage, and the would approach it with such manners. “Oh, you go first. Thank you. Don’t mind if I do. Oh, I’ll wait. Your turn.” Fascinating! Capuchins were another story. Hand out with food. Four monkeys, eight little fists scrabbling and grabbing. “Mine! Mine! Get outta here! Mine mine mine!!”
And then there were the squirrel monkeys. And out of a group of five, one adorable wide-eyed little girl who tentatively looked at us pleadingly. “Mom?” her eyes asked. “Mom? Will you be my mom?” And Edith Anne came home with us, my youngest child.