Monkey for Breakfast: Stories from an Enthralling Planet

By George Russell Sly

George Slys experiences as a biologist and observer of nature provide the background for a series of essays which speak movingly of our relationship with the natural world. His stories carry us from his rural Indiana home to the rainforests of Malaysia and Peru. In them, he reminds us of the value of loved ones, our need for connection with nature, the delights of travel, and the rewards of a reflective life. In essays ranging from the whimsical to the serious, his writings reveal to us a world that is indeed enthralling. From the graphic workings of a family farm, to his friendship with tribal people of the rainforest, and on to a grandfathers attempt to explain lifes calamities, these compositions both entertain and give us much to contemplate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467064965

George Russell Sly

George Russell Sly is a biologist, former Peace Corps volunteer, and rainforest adventurer who retired after thirty-seven years of teaching at the college and high school level. He has been recognized as one of the nation’s most innovative science teachers by the National Association of Science Teachers. The National Association of Biology Teachers selected him as Indiana’s outstanding biology teacher in 1999. George has published scientific papers in the fields of herpetology and mammalogy as well as web-based articles regarding tropical rainforest biology, dinosaur science, and the writings of conservationist Aldo Leopold. George and Anne, his wife of forty-six years, live in a passive solar home they built upon eight acres of wooded land in Sullivan County, Indiana. Their lives are blessed by the companionship of daughter Michelle and grandchildren Riley and Grace.

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Contents

Introduction: Looking Back

Part I

Stories from Home

Chapter 1

Great Treasures

Chapter 2

No Fence Makes Good Neighbors

Chapter 3

Sugar Creek Idyll

Chapter 4

My Favorite Professor

Chapter 5

The Tragic Death of Billy

Chapter 6

Hiking the Canyon

Chapter 7

In Yellowstone Country

Chapter 8

Grand Prix

Part II

Stories from Afar

Chapter 9

Starving in a Land of Plenty

Chapter 10

Night Walking

Chapter 11

Dohdong

Chapter 12

Monkey for Breakfast

Chapter 13

Hylobates at Play

Chapter 14

Pangolin Pandemonium

Chapter 15

Swimming with Sharks

Chapter 16

The Fruit of the Durian Tree

Chapter 17

Comes the Chullachaqui

Chapter 18

The House on the Urco Mirano

Chapter 19

I Just Wanted a Pepsi

Chapter 20

Remote Places

Part III

A Story About a Really Big Question

Chapter 21

Papaw, Why Did God Make Mass Extinctions?

Introduction: Looking Back

When I was teaching, I sometimes made use of my experiences in various parts of the world to enliven and personalize a lesson. My students would occasionally tell me that I should write a book. I thank them for their encouragement.

Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul, says that story-telling is an experience which is good for nurturing the spirit. The telling of stories helps to reinforce who we are, where we have come from, and what we believe in. You will notice that many of the stories in Part I revolve around friends, relatives, and loved ones. In reading these essays, you may find as I have that many of the relationships and experiences we take for granted, that we often consider as routine, in reality constitute our most exceptional and prized life experiences.

Looking back it occurs to me that, on more than one occasion, I have been privy to some extraordinary experiences during my life. Some of these, at first recollection, seemed mundane but upon further reflection revealed that they were significantly more important. Others, for a rural Hoosier boy of modest origins, could probably be described as exotic. This is particularly true of my experiences during the years 1973-1976 when I was a Peace Corps-Smithsonian Institution Environmental Program volunteer in Malaysia. Several of the stories in Part II of this book derive from that time and place.

In Part III, I have tried to give insight into how a person trained in the sciences has attempted to juxtapose this with a deep-seated religious belief. It is a very personal story, but one which I feel compelled to offer.

In the end, I leave these stories for my grandchildren Grace and Riley. Experiencing the world and its cultures isn’t quite as simple or as convenient as it was forty years ago. Yet I would like for them to understand that the world, both near and far, still holds unlimited possibilities. Countless opportunities for pursuing the wonders of learning, exploration, and adventure still exist here upon our enthralling planet.

Part I

Stories from Home

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The Sly-family cabin in rural Sullivan County, Indiana.

Chapter 1

Great Treasures

Don’t regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.

Anon.

Although I wrote this essay ten years ago, upon the birth of my first grandchild, the passage of time has only confirmed the appropriateness of its title.

As I age, I’m often reminded of Art Linkletter’s observation that, getting old isn’t for sissies. What used to be an easy leap from bed is now a fifteen-minute ritual of restoring movement to hips and knees. Other problems have begun to rear their ugly heads. My hair has become dishearteningly white, the skin less elastic, and all the really good foods are instantly converted to abdominal adipose. And these are just a few of the dilemmas; others of them just don’t abide discussing within polite society.

While discouraging, all of this would be downright unbearable if not for the fact that I’ve noticed a wonderful gift that comes with this aging process. That gift is an increased perception of, and sensitivity to, those things in my life that are truly important, and by connotation those which are not. Such things constitute one’s true wealth. Of course by living for more than half a century now, I have come into possession of many great treasures. These treasures are priceless.

How for example could one attach a price tag to the insights gained by circumnavigating the Earth as a young man? How much is it worth to have been invited for dinner in the home of Hindu friends on the other side of the world? How might I describe the value of having slept in the rainforest with my Temuan companions and to have sensed their understanding of the forest? Try to imagine the merit of gazing upon Mount Kilimanjaro turned purple in the evening sun. How could I quantify the worthiness of floating the Amazon beneath a sky filled with pillows of cumulus clouds, a sky so big and blue it seemed that surely, I was the first human ever granted such a vision?

But, as I said, I have lived for many years. I have great treasures. Some even surpass these. The dearest of all my treasures are people. Again, I must ask the questions of appraisal. How can one place material value upon a wife willing to forgive one’s most senseless transgressions? How could I place a value upon the nightly ritual of caressing unto slumber, place a worth upon sharing a sunset in Bali, place a price upon the willingness of another person to offer comfort when one is too ill to raise the head?

Could I possess a greater fortune than a child who has grown to become a best friend? Could there be a finer treasure than the pride a father feels as his child grows into a sensitive, caring adult? And now comes another great blessing. Friends had told me that there was nothing to compare with grand-parenthood. I always nodded in pleasant agreement but without, of course, true understanding. But now I comprehend, and I feel totally inadequate in trying to explain the sense of love this little human engenders in me. I might as well try to capture and place in a bottle the warmth of an April sun upon the shoulders.

And so I bask in the warmth of this fortune. I run my fingers over it. I try to comprehend the great wealth I possess. As I reflect upon my treasures, something tells me that there is more here than meets the eye, that there is a deeper meaning. I seem to sense that these belongings, tangible and intangible, are much more than my personal, priceless jewels. They are sources of wonder, for it may be that they represent something truly profound. Bishop John Spong has described God as the Source of Love and the Ground of Our Being. These seem like pleasing definitions for something beyond our feeble powers to delimit. Could it be that my feelings are an allusion to the love we try to impart to our fellow humans, so seldom with success? Are they an insinuation of the love we should convey to all of the Creation? Are they perhaps a suspicion of what our Being is about? Are not treasures such as mine what sanctify our lives and make them worth living? If so, the love for a grandchild is trebled in wonder for it may also reveal to us the source of our humanity and perhaps what it means to exist as the image of God.

Chapter 2

No Fence Makes Good Neighbors

Several years ago Anne, Michelle, and I drove down to Orlando during Spring Break to visit my dad Delbert and his wife Marilyn. They treated us royally, as always, and we had a great time. Anne and Michelle spent a lot of time at Cocoa Beach and I managed to get in a few days of crappie (or specks as they call them down there) fishing with my father. We didn’t catch anything but had a good time talking and buddying around. The evenings were pleasant as we usually took a walk around the neighborhood and enjoyed the warm weather and luxurious plant growth.

It seemed that as always the time flew by; suddenly vacation was nearing its end and it was time to head homeward. Invariably, it seems that one of the worst things about going home after a winter break in Florida is the prospect of facing the cold, wind, and mud of an Indiana March. That year was no different. In fact it was a bit worse than normal because, as we got into Kentucky, it began sleeting and snowing. The lack of sunshine was depressing enough, but heading back into a winter storm was downright discouraging.

The primary thought on my mind, as we entered the last one hundred miles before home, was the fact that I was going to have to face a cold house. At that time, we heated our house primarily with a wood stove. A few baseboard electric heaters kept things from freezing while we were gone. The notion of having to climb out of the car after the long drive, haul in a load of wet wood, start a fire, and get the house up to a comfortable temperature was genuinely depressing.

We reached our lane at last, early in the evening, and turned in. At that moment I saw one of the most blessed sites I’ve ever laid eyes upon. Still, years later, I can clearly picture it in my mind. Curling from our chimney was the most beautiful little plume of wood smoke one could ever hope to see. As we carried our luggage into the house we were greeted by the special kind of warmth that only a wood stove conveys. It seemed that suddenly I was transformed and the blues were whisked away. It felt good to be home again.

There was no great mystery as to how our house glowed with warmth and our week’s mail was neatly arranged on the kitchen counter. You see, we have neighbors. These are neighbors in the most conventional sense of the word, neighbors in the tradition of the Waltons, neighbors one associates with rural living, and the sense of trust and helpfulness that many think disappeared in the 19th century. To our neighbors, Ron and Cindy, getting our home ready for us was done as a simple act of kindness, what many in our area might call Christian charity. It was unsolicited and carried no expectation of reward.

To us it was much more. It was a reminder of why we have returned to our roots in rural Indiana. It was a token of how small everyday acts of kindness can bring great joy and gratitude to others. It was a reminder of how thankful we should all be each time we encounter a simple blessing of life, such as good neighbors.

Chapter 3

Sugar Creek Idyll

There was a time forty years ago when one could float Sugar Creek from Crawfordsville down to Jackson Bridge in Parke County and still get a sense of 19th century Indiana. The stream, usually low and in no particular hurry in July, wound its way through both Shades and Turkey Run state parks, two of the state’s last gemstones. Even in areas under public ownership, one could still be entranced by the huge