Realla Go’rilla

When I was a teenager I visited the Overton Park Zoo and at that time the Gorillas were housed in a cubical which had a glass frontage which ran from the ceiling to the floor. On the sides of this cubical were glass port holes, that allowed children and adults to peer into their living quarters and watch gorillas do whatever gorillas do.

Well, one afternoon I decided that I would watch the gorillas from one of these port holes, and as fate would have it the female gorilla was out in the middle of this massive gorilla habitat and the best I can remember was that she was sitting with this far away gorilla look in her eyes.

Well, almost instantaneously as I looked into the portal, her head turned and looked right at me.

As we made eye contact, she moved towards me.

I mean, without warning she came over to the porthole where I was standing, and stuck her head into the porthole and pressed her gorilla face against the glass.

I was eye to eye, nose to nose, face to face with a real live gorilla.

The only thing that separated us was a sheet of glass.

I mean, she looked at me with the kind of gaze that really only a male gorilla could begin to appreciate.

As she rocked her head from side to side, I started to rock my head from side to side.

She started rolling her head in ways I cannot really describe to you, and as best as humanly possible I attempted to do the same.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, she started making female gorilla noises coupled with these sequences of head motions that sounded something like:

“OOOOoooooooouuuuuuuu...ooooooouuuuuuuuOOO”.

She moved her head forward and backward, and I would move my head forward and backward.

She pressed her face against the glass, and I would press my face against the glass.

She would go ‘OOOOOoooouuuuuu... ooooOOOuuuu’,

I would echo ‘OOOOOoooouuuuuu... ooOOOOOOuuu.’

Listen, it never entered my mind that this was some kind of secret gorilla courting ritual.

Well, I guess the male gorilla must have heard his mate
whispering sweet nothings into my ear, because he slowly came out from the back of the enclosure to see what was going on.

I can still see the shocked look on his face when he realized what kind of monkey business his wife was up to as he ran over and grabbed her and threw her to the middle of the room.

Without warning he placed his head into the porthole and screamed at the top of his gorilla lungs, which in turn caused me to scream like a woman.

He then took his gorilla sized fist and hit the glass which separated me from them and them from me, which was so loud that it caused me as well as some 20 other people to scream and take a few steps back!

He then dragged the female gorilla to the back, threw her into their private living quarters, threw himself down, and kicked up his leg so that she could not get out.

[20 Years Later]

My wife, children and I were visiting the Overton Park Zoo and the Gorilla’s are now located in a wonderful open area that is suppose to be similar to their habitat.

As we approached the gorilla’s area the youngest gorilla was laying on the edge of the window where my children could really get a close look at him.

This young one year old gorilla was very interactive with my children where he would place his hand on the
window and they would place their hands on the window.

Well, it finally got to my turn to see the youngest of the gorillas and as I moved up to the glass the young gorilla moved it’s arm from the glass and covered its head so he could not see me.

This particular day there was a wonderful zoo volunteer standing nearby, and I asked her what was wrong.

I mean, he was so responsive to my children and yet seemed so scared of me.

This dear lady with the utmost of tact and grace said:

‘Sir, I don’t know how to say this in the right words, but in the gorilla kingdom, the dominate male has the bigger head, and you are apparently intimidating him.’

Right then and there it all finally made sense to me – this was why that female gorilla was so attracted to me... this was why the younger gorilla was so intimated by me… in the gorilla kingdom the dominate male has the bigger head, and my head was bigger than
her husbands!

From time to time we still go to the zoo where I often go by to see the gorilla and it is not uncommon to still have the female gorilla lift her hand to her ear and whisper through the glass:

“Call me… call me…”

Yes, there are times when the phone rings in the middle of the night and when I answer there is nobody there --- but Rilla and I know who it really is.