My attraction to monkeys began early in my childhood. I
loved Margret and H.A. Rey’s Curious George stories, and I envied his tiny
suitcase that he carried everywhere containing all of his important possessions.
When I was about 8 years old, I got to meet some real life Curious Georges. My
father was employed at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo as a behavioral
psychologist, working with animal subjects. He worked with white rats, but his
colleague, Dr. Gault, worked with rhesus monkeys. My father would take me along
on an occasional weekend task and I got to visit the monkey enclosures. They
were always so excited to see humans approaching and their energy and loudness
was both scary and exciting. I got to feed them biscuits from large Purina
Monkey Biscuit bags. Tiny fingers held out the treat and tiny fingers accepted.
I begged to have one of these monkeys as a pet, but my dad concluded that our big
old house on Oakland Drive was not big enough for our growing family and a monkey,
too.
Western Michigan University also gave me another unexpected,
but delightful monkey treat. WMU housed a wonderful experimental teaching
school, preschoolers through high school (you could go from preschool to a Ph.D.
all in one place!), which I attended since my dad worked there. At one of the
yearly children’s book fairs, I got to actually meet Margret and H.A. Rey.
Monkeys are one of my very favorite animal subjects. They
are elegant in their simplicity, like real monkeys, and each has a definite
personality.
A few components of my monkeys are:
- Body – Redwood fence posts
- Legs – Kitchen utensils or old tool handles
- Arms, ballerina-like – Badminton rackets (tennis rackets are not as elegant)
- Feet – Old furniture casters or printing wheels
- Tails – Pieces of a metal strap, and
- Goofy expressions and hand carved bananas
