Last week several things happened that first got my attention, then the memories kicked in. The first was all the breaking news on television and daily newspapers about a monkey that got away from his owner and their house on the Eastside of Indianapolis. There were a few days of updates until the monkey was found and captured. This was covered by both local and national news.
That kicked in my memory of the day that I confronted a monkey on the sidewalk of our home on Madison Avenue. I was riding my self-propelled little fire truck from the front of our house to the backyard when I was stopped by a well-dressed monkey standing in my path.
I bailed out of my ride and ran to our front door and yelled to my parents and some other relatives that a monkey was out here. I recall a great amount of laughter from those adults. I yelled to them a couple of more times before my aunt finally walked to the door and came outside. Once she spotted my new friend, she scampered back to the door and yelled, “There is a monkey out here”.
The monkey climbed up into a tree in our yard and was still there at my bedtime. By morning, he had moved on. We later found out he had escaped from a small animal show that was performing at Longacre Pool and Park. He returned to the park and reconnected with his human and animal friends.
All of this took place and there was no coverage of his escape, his visit to our place or his return from radio, television or newspapers. My how things have changed.
Also last week, I was informed that a good friend and former co-worker had taken a bad fall and was nursing a broken foot. I saw a photo of her wearing one of those large foot supports. It seems that she had taken the terrible fall maybe in the kitchen or cafeteria of the school. I also found out that stepping into some applesauce might have contributed to the plunge.
I sat down with our dog, Simon and told him about our friend’s nasty fall and broken foot. He listened carefully and then explained that in his former life he provided assistance and training to humans with broken body parts.
He offered to provide training and therapy for her using a pogo stick. That didn’t sound all that good to me, but I know very little about physical therapy. He escorted me to my office and had me make him a few fliers that promoted his new pogo stick therapy business.
We drove over to the school and dropped off a copy. We also stopped in a couple of other offices and shared one of his fliers. We were informed that she was not at work but probably a few copies might be e-mailed to her.
Simon and I made those deliveries last Friday afternoon. We were also reminding staff members that there would be a totally different schedule for most of them for the next couple of weeks because of what is known as “Fall Break”. Simon tried to explain to several of them that starting a couple of weeks of fall break should not involve falling and breaking your foot.
I hope that everyone that is connected in any way with fall break has an opportunity to enjoy some of it.
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.