One day, when I was 17 yrs old, my boyfriend Jim and I were driving down the road singing silly songs about the things we saw. I was looking out the side window, when Jim started singing about a monkey, I looked at him like he was strange..of course this was Miami, Fl; the land of exotic pets, but why would he be singing about a monkey while driving a car? We were in the city, and no where near an amusement park! He told me to look in front of us..and there, in the car in front of us was a monkey in a cage! We had nothing better to do, so we decided to follow them and see where they were going. After a while, they turned into the parking lot of the animal shelter.
Now this was back in 1967, the "HIPPY" years, and I'm proud to admit that I was a hippy as well as Jim (we were also a little crazy!!). We pulled up next to them, got out and asked them why they were bringing a monkey to the shelter. They told us it was a spider-monkey (they have very long arms,legs and tail) and it had been their pet, but it had bitten their young son and they were bringing it it to be put down.
Jim and I just looked at each other, and without thinking we both said at the same time "Let us have him..don't kill the poor thing". They said they couldn't because the monkey had bitten someone already. We begged and begged until at last they gave him to us. We had a friend named J.C., a real hippy hippy, and the monkey resembled him, so we named the monkey J.C. We loaded him into our car and drove away. Then it hit us, where would we keep a 4 ft spider-monkey?
My dad was as crazy about animals as I was (remember the alligators??) so I told Jim to drive to my house and talk to my dad. J.C. was on a 6 ft chain, and when we got to my house I called my dad out, he really liked the monkey, and J.C. liked him too. J.C. climbed right up into my dad's arms. Now, my mom likes animals too, but after Sam the peacock she was not happy about the monkey, and said that I couldn't keep it at my house. Then we drove to Jim's house. We already knew we wouldn't have a problem there, Jim was 20, and the oldest of four boys as well as the male head of the house, and his mom was cool (I am not saying my mom wasn't..but she was easier to convince than my mom).
When we drove up, J.C. was there looking for us. He laughed when we told him the monkey was named after him. Jim's three brothers came out and thought the monkey was "neat". When Jim's mom came home, she said the monkey could stay, but not in the house. Well, out back was a tree house the boys had made a few years earlier, so we didn't have a problem. J.C. jr (as we called the monkey when J.C. was around) loved the tree house. At night we had to chain him to the tree house, but we were careful that he had room to rove and wouldn't get hung up, so it worked out great.
J.C. jr (as well as J.C.) went everywhere with us. We would take him to the park, and I would swing with him on the swings. He loved going for rides in the car, especially when we went to the beach. All the people would stare at us, and sometimes J.C. jr would stare right back at them. We always got a good laugh at that.
We had J.C. jr for two years, then one day when Jim came home from work, J.C. was gone. We never did find out what happened to him, we searched all over but no J.C. jr. Jim and I broke up a yr or so later, but we will never forget our friend J.C. jr.
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