By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
The Chinese zodiac assigns an animal and its unique characteristics to each year of a rotating 12-year cycle. If I had such calendar naming rights, I’d almost certainly attribute the last twelve months to the howling monkey.
The Alouatta Lacepede or common howler monkey is perhaps the loudest land animal. Native to the jungles of Central and South America, it screams for a variety of reasons, including in reaction to perceived threats or in anticipation of important life events.
As a boy, I spent many a lazy summer afternoon watching B movies on our old black and white television set. Many such cinematic adventures were set in jungles. Inevitably, screaming monkeys foreshadowed some kind of plot danger ahead for the principal characters.
Lately, I wonder if the monkeys have been screeching in my suburban neighborhood, nestled in the shadows of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. There were plenty of lurking dangers to announce during the last year.
Both my wife and daughter needed major transplant surgery. My brother ended his own life. And then there was the pandemic, existential dread, choking wildfire smoke, an earthquake, major workplace changes, and social unrest and divisions along the entire ideological spectrum.
I felt like screaming myself. Did I miss the monkey howls that predicted all this misery? A heads up would have been quite handy.
Then, one night, I did hear a monkey howl. It was close to midnight. I was shutting down the house for the night. Right after I turned off the lights, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a snake hissing and a monkey howling.
Adrenalin rushing, I flipped the lights back on and searched for the unwelcome intruders. I did not find them, so I went to bed. This pattern repeated itself two or three times over the next week.
Finally, I told my wife Vicki about the animal noises and my inability to ferret them out and protect her. She laughed and walked over to a basket near our fireplace. She pulled out a wooden board and handed it to me.
It was a battery-powered sound puzzle of zoo animals manufactured by the Melissa & Doug toy company from Connecticut. The product description indicates that this “Adorably Illustrated” and “Beautifully Crafted” puzzle includes pictures of a crocodile, elephant, lion, penguin, zebra, snake, macaw, and…a howling monkey!
The manufacturers explain that the “puzzle helps teach matching and listening skills as well as manual dexterity.” The animals make noises when lifted off and then returned to the puzzle board. As I discovered late at night, they also sound off with the elimination of light from a room that holds the still-activated toy.
Now you may ask yourselves, why would two adults pushing senior citizen status need such a toy? My wife was doing her own form of grandmother nesting, preparing our home for the arrival of our first grandson, Walter Patrick Dahlberg.
This nesting process involved the purchase of a number of games and toys from Melissa & Doug, including the jungle animals sound puzzle. Walter Patrick, affectionately dubbed “Wally,” was born in early 2021, so howling monkeys heralded his arrival.
It’s easy for us, in the middle of difficult times and troubled waters, to read the signs and portends in a negative light, and to despair that only dark days are ahead. And sometimes we are right.
Other times, however, the howling monkeys launch our life boats into a new and better jungle, to an exciting and evolved existence. Around our house, we call it Wally World.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
