Circus Monkeys & Gimpel the Fool; Lessons From My Father © “When I was in the service,” my father said, “we were working with monkeys,and the Officer in charge said, ‘Some of these monkeys are old circus monkeys’ and then he lit up a cigarette and handed it to one of the orangutans, and dammit if the monkey didn’t take the cigarette and smoke it for himself, and the Officer says, ‘See, circus monkey knows how to smoke a cigarette, that’s how you can tell.’” As a small child, I just thought it was a funny story about a monkey who smoked cigarettes. As a tween, I didn’t understand why the United States Army had my father smoking cigarettes with an orangutan during the Vietnam War. I don’t know exactly when (or how) I figured it out, but what it was is this...my father has a degree in biology, so the army stuck him in a lab rather than on the killing field, and the orangutan he smoked cigarettes with was his test subject rather than his pet. What were father and his teammates testing on their subjects...he never said, but if I had to guess, I’d say nerve gas. Yes, father’s funny story about a cigarette-smoking monkey is actually more monstrous than laughable...it’s really the story of how father treated the monkey like a buddy (sharing cigarettes with it as if it were an old pal) before he gassed it to death.
Circus Monkeys and Gimpel the Fool; Lessons From My Father
Circus Monkeys and Gimpel the Fool; Lessons…
Circus Monkeys and Gimpel the Fool; Lessons From My Father
Circus Monkeys & Gimpel the Fool; Lessons From My Father © “When I was in the service,” my father said, “we were working with monkeys,and the Officer in charge said, ‘Some of these monkeys are old circus monkeys’ and then he lit up a cigarette and handed it to one of the orangutans, and dammit if the monkey didn’t take the cigarette and smoke it for himself, and the Officer says, ‘See, circus monkey knows how to smoke a cigarette, that’s how you can tell.’” As a small child, I just thought it was a funny story about a monkey who smoked cigarettes. As a tween, I didn’t understand why the United States Army had my father smoking cigarettes with an orangutan during the Vietnam War. I don’t know exactly when (or how) I figured it out, but what it was is this...my father has a degree in biology, so the army stuck him in a lab rather than on the killing field, and the orangutan he smoked cigarettes with was his test subject rather than his pet. What were father and his teammates testing on their subjects...he never said, but if I had to guess, I’d say nerve gas. Yes, father’s funny story about a cigarette-smoking monkey is actually more monstrous than laughable...it’s really the story of how father treated the monkey like a buddy (sharing cigarettes with it as if it were an old pal) before he gassed it to death.