MONKEYS

I think my monkey period began when I was about ten years old. Waldameer park was a short walk up a dusty path from my grandmother's cottage in Erie. It's a nice little amusement park that has survived the times, and in spite of a new water park addition, and a harrowing new roller coaster called the " Ravine Flyer ", a lot of the park hasn't changed since I was a kid.

They still have some of the kiddie land rides that I squeezed into until I was about 18, but the monkeys are long gone.

The monkeys lived in a cement shelter surrounded by a moat, which was surrounded by a smooth cement wall that was just the right height for a kid to rest his chin on. My cousin and I went to the park every morning...long before the rides opened....just to watch the monkeys. I think there were about 25 of them, and they entertained us for hours and hours. The big mean ones were the most captivating...as they had bad tempers, especially when we'd toss some food to them that they had to go into the water to retrieve. They'd make a real mean monkey face at us and yell something that was untranslatable. They spent a lot of time grooming each other...picking something or other off their backs and then eating it. My cousin would yell "oooh" and they'd all turn and glare at him and look like they were going to swim over and climb the wall and eat him.

Every once in awhile one would escape...like the one that chased our cousin Janet while Aunt Katie chased him...(so goes the tale that none of the relatives could actually swear they'd witnessed.) Usually the renegade monkey would be caught up in a tree, and I'd tell my cousin that he was the reason for all the fuss...a few of those monkeys had it in for him.

Other than the time a giant tree caught fire when the park had fireworks, the most fun we ever had at the park involved the monkeys. We did ride the Old Mill although we were both afraid that the giant belt that made the boats go up the hill was eventually going to snap and send us hurling over the trees into the monkey pit where we'd not be treated very well.

Since I was always the instigator (crowned as such by my wise godmother)...I brought all things monkey-like into our daily lives at the lake. A lot of the really young kids thought I was part monkey myself...as I could ( AND still can ) make really good monkey noises. My cousin Carole was about two at the time and we communicated mostly like monkeys. She  now has grown children, but a place in her heart for monkeys...maybe because I bought her all sorts of stuffed monkeys instead of teddy bears, and because she once took a real one for a walk on a leash when her unusual neighbors were away. She loves dogs and has always had a couple of them, but I know what she'd REALLY like to have.

The monkeys are long gone...someone said they all went to the space program...but I doubt that. I still go to the park...still obviously think about the monkeys, and spend lots of time looking for old post cards from Erie...just to prove that a kid could have a wonderfully memorable time at an amusement park without ever getting on a ride.