Trapped on Monkey Island

When I was growing up in South Jersey, I looked forward to the one day each year when our elementary school class would visit the Philadelphia Zoo. Back in those far off days of the late-1960's the Phildelphia Zoo had an exhibit called Monkey Island. It was situated in a kind of circular pit where a concrete "island" rose up surrounded by a "moat". On the island lived what seemed to be a hundred little monkeys who swung on what was probably meant to be children's playground equipment. It certainly was not the natural habitat-type setting that you see nowadays. But back before environmentalism and PETA, this was a very popular exhibit. It was the highlight of the zoo trip for me. I loved standing at the top of that pit, watching the little monkeys swinging and playing all over monkey island. They were so cute! How I wished I could go down onto that island and play with them!

Flash forward 35 years. Guess what. I'm now stranded on monkey island.

You see, I have three teen-aged boys. They are 17, 16 and 15 years old. No, no, no. I did not give birth to all of them; just the eldest and the youngest. The middle child came to live on Monkey Island about two years ago, but I'll save that story for a post some other day. The point is, three boys that close in age tend to continuously engage in monkey behavior. They roll on the floor together. They bounce on the furniture. They throw things at each other. They make weird jungle noises. They also don't always have fully developed decision-making skills. They tend to be cute, and their antics may cause you to laugh. It's fun to play with them, but too much of a good thing can get on anyone's nerves.

In romantic tales of adventure, we sometimes read of people being stranded on islands for many years. They send out messages in bottles hoping for rescue. This blog is my electronic message in a bottle. Please come back to find the messages I toss into the sea from time to time. At this point, I've been stranded on this island for nearly 18 years. Any contact with real humans, even via electronic means, is welcome. For now, I will be off to another part of the island where I hear the screech of three 6-foot monkeys playing video games. If I don't go back there and attempt to keep them under control, they may destroy something.

















Here's a photo of a monkey island from a zoo in Seattle, Washington. It's not exactly like Philly's old monkey island, but I can't find a photo of that. If anyone has an old photo of the Philadelphia Zoo's monkey island circa 1970, I'd love to see it!