Requested: Penguins and Monkeys

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on January 22, 2005). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Requested by Candace:

Penguins…..definately penguins….Oh! And monkeys too! :P

Penguin slap

Penguins, huh? And monkeys? Well, there’s two critters that don’t generally appear together as a topic. Hm…

I picked up my love for penguins (platonic, I assure you, you sickos) from dad, for the most part. When dad was working for the Alaska Court System, his office was practically wallpapered with pictures of penguins. He had little penguin figurines on his desk. Stuffed penguins on his shelves. Even a three-foot tall stuffed Emperor penguin in one corner. Penguins everywhere!

And — if I remember correctly — it all started through dad’s love of kids.

Dad’s been working as a custody investigator for years (first through DFYS, then the Alaska Court System, and now freelancing after his retirement). It can be something of a rough job, as he spends his days interviewing families that are splitting up for one reason or another and determining which parent should wind up with custody of the children. It can lead to some tough situations and hard days, but it can also be very rewarding for him, through working with the kids and doing what he can to make sure they’re placed in the best situation possible.

(Now, what follows comes from memory, so I may not have it quite exactly right. The gist should be pretty accurate, though.)

Because he spent a lot of time talking with young children, he always made sure to keep various toys and stuffed animals in his office for them to play with. Being a fan of Bloom County, one of the toys he had in his office was an Opus the penguin doll. After one of his sessions with a child, the kid came back later for another session and brought along a picture they had drawn for dad of his penguin, which he then put up on his wall.

Later, another kid came in, saw the Opus doll and the penguin picture, and drew another one. Co-workers started to notice that there were a few penguins in dad’s office, figured that “hey, this guy must like penguins,” and got him a penguin calendar. Or another stuffed penguin. Or a little penguin figurine. And on, and on, and on…

After a while, it was difficult to look anywhere in dad’s office without seeing a penguin. And — perhaps as evidence that immersion therapy really does work — a perceived thing for penguins eventually became a real thing for penguins.

Me being my dad’s son, and sharing much of his sense of humor and love of the absurd, it’s not all that surprising that I’d pick up on all this. It certainly helped that I grew up reading Bloom County, of course, but penguins are such silly, fun little birds that it’d be tough not to like them anyway. I don’t have the penguin wallpaper effect going on that dad did for years, but I do have a little stuffed penguin that sits atop my computer monitor that Prairie got me a while ago, and I always make sure to stop by the penguin exhibits when we go to a zoo. Definitely my favorite animal out there.

Monkeys, now. That’s a little tougher for me. Candice had a purple monkey in her truck, and Prairie has a pink monkey in her car, but that’s about my only association with monkeys at the moment. I do have a couple of monkeys in my past, though (whether or not you want to include some of my friends on that list is entirely up to you).

Me, Kermit, and Charles Wallace in 1991

For a long time, I had an arm-puppet monkey with a little squeaker air bulb in his mouth that I liked playing with. More importantly, though, was the one stuffed animal I had as a kid — Charles Wallace (named after the little boy in Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time).

Charles actually looked more like a dog, with his big floppy ears, but for some reason I always considered him a monkey. I had him for the longest time (and still do, I’m sure, I believe he’s in a box up in Anchorage at the moment), and even had mom perform surgery on him at one point after a fight between my brother and I when we each had ahold of one of Charles’ legs, tugging back and forth…and Charles got suddenly neutered.

iTunesHeat” by Kronos Quartet from the album Heat (1995, 7:41).