Things I've Learned From The Animals In My Life ~ When You Weigh As Much As A Small Car, You Can Do Whatever You Want In Public ~ Original Photography/Story ~
Lets Face It:
When you weigh in at 400 pounds, have an 8 foot wingspan, can lift a Buick and occasionally have a bad day when people give you a hard time...
...You can pretty much do whatever you want in public.
While at the Omaha Zoo a couple of years ago, enjoying a very nice day out, I encountered the outdoor gorilla enclosure. I spent an hour or more standing or sitting on a bench, watching these magnificent, gentle giants.
There were several large males in the outdoor enclosure, just minding their own business as best they could in an un-natural concrete environs. They just sat about, eating shoots of plants tossed in by the 'keepers', looking up at the sun, scratching, picking at bugs, preening, and occasionally getting into rather violent, yet short-lived and not damaging tiffs with one another. Basically doing their everyday gorilla thing as best they could.
And being living, breathing creatures of the planet, they would occasionally embark into those necessities of life that all of us biological creatures have to perform now and then. We humans just get the luxury of doing them in the semi-private world of our bathroom, home, or other areas within which we exist. You know...all the various biological do's and don't s of public etiquette our Mothers and 2nd grade teachers taught us all about years ago.
Jump ahead to the Zoo. This large male was sitting on a rock, being a gorilla, quietly picking his nose and looking at what he found, when a couple of young boys next to me made a few comments and had a good laugh at his expense. Nothing like the exuberance of unsupervised youth for a grin. The gorilla did not seem to be nearly as amused.
I swear he understood them. And in a very quiet yet direct manner, turned his head in a knowing way, and shot a quick stare in our direction as I was snapping away with the camera. The understated, yet direct stare he laser'd our way could bend metal. I lowered the camera for a moment, mouthed the words -"It Wasn't Me" - all the while pointing in the boy's direction with hand hidden behind the camera, using the standard, bent index-finger motion of deflected blame, before returning to my viewfinder once more.
Not sure he understood what I was inferring, but I would not want to find out the hard way that he didn't. Very soon he went back to minding his own gorilla business, and the boys moved on to harass other animals of the zoo. I stayed on for quite a while longer at the enclosure to watch and appreciate one of the most amazing animals of our small planet. Doing whatever he wanted, however he wanted, whenever he wanted, in the glorious warmth of the mid-day sun.
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This is a funny story! I have never seen gorillas in real life. I can imagine they are intimidating. Congratulations on your number of followers award!
Thank you so much. Had to break out the leopard skin to display that momentous award ( : I hope you get to see a gorilla sometime, in real "person", they are truly impressive. Yet very gentle.
Good evening dd! What a great tale and observations! It's nice to know that there are others on the planet that are content to sit and just observe animals doing their thing. As a kid I spent untold hours watching my uncle's mustangs, and you don't even want me to get started at how much time I spent in bear observation, lol!
Also, I am so sorry that your lovely post got downvoted. This experiment seems about as pleasant as that gorilla's thoughts at being observed at personal mining time.
Howdy. Thanks so much for the read and comment. Means alot to me. I bet you do have some amazing bear stories. They are so cool, but also have a tendency to scare the bejeebers out of me whenever I've had an encounter out in their land. Puts it on a whole different level...it's all up to the bear.
And thanks for the vote support. I don't claim to understand much of this, but what I do understand, seems like it might be a possible change for the better over time. The voting/monetary gain seems to me to be a bit askew, and anything that might even it out over more people, may be a good idea. The social interaction/feedback part of this site is the most important to me. Though if anyone wants to shower me with coins, that 's ok too ( :
I wrote a whole bunch more here, then got tired of myself, so erased it.
But I am going to ride it out, and see where this grand experiment in social/blockchain dynamics takes me. The good news, it's gotten me to write more, which is my largest goal. Well, I've babbled on here long enough. Thanks again, and have a goot evenink.
Well Hullo again my friend! Our feelings regarding Steemit sound pretty similar! My participation on this platform has given me so much more confidence as a writer, and that seriously cannot have a value ascribed to it. I have been sitting on an almost finished novel for years, but didn't think that I or it was good enough. The whole Steemit experiment has helped in the confidence department so much.
Without its existence I probably wouldn't have ever gotten to ponder your most excellent musings and photos, along with all of the amazing creativity that all of the other users post. I'm sticking around as well.
And LOL on the erasing! It takes me forever to comment sometimes, especially on things that could be deemed inflammatory. Give me a bear or a disagreement in real life any time; that I can handle (You should have seen my work today with an 8 year old that thought it would be a good idea to scream the f-bomb like a song in the library). I worry about contextual misappropriation in the digital world, so I tend to play nice.
I will quit babbling, hope you are having a lovely evening!
I'm glad you are rejuvenated in the writing department. I greatly enjoy your work, it always makes me laugh. You do have talent. I hope you put your novel out sometime in the near future. Is it humourous, or serious? You would do well to put out a book of the logging camp chronicles. People really enjoy reading about worlds so far from their own.
Speaking of which, sounds like your job is a challenging one indeed. Never a dull moment.
As for the contextual misappropriation, that is a constant question with all of this posting. Yes, no, yes no....
My turn to prattle on. Have a good evening as well.
Those are such great, expressive photos of that gorilla. And that's quite the experience with the kids at the zoo, too. I have mixed feelings about zoos, but I do appreciate seeing such a magnificent gorilla. They need all the help they can get, especially in their native habitat.
So very sad but true. Hard to accept a zoo, yet, I'd never see one if not. Then again, if they could still be highly viable in nature, I'd gladly give that up in a second. Sad indeed.
At least zoos are getting better in how they manage their animals. As a kid, our regional zoo was just big animals pacing back and forth in tiny cages. Really terrible. It's long since closed. And the bigger zoos are making much bigger habitats, with more interesting things. And they are helping in breeding programs to maximize genetic diversity for species in trouble. But I"m with you -- I'd trade all that, easily, for better natural habitats!
I remember those sad little prison boxes of old for the animals. It has improved drastically. I guess something like that is better than nothing. Thanks for the look and comment, I appreciate it muchly.
You're welcome!
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the first half of Mar 14. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $1.92 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
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We are on strike against this experiment that did not work !!! Heres a blog i just posted ! https://steemit.com/steemit/@karenmckersie/hello-abit-smooth-steemit-stike-notice-is-on-your-experiment-did-not-work
Excellent work dear friend @ ddschteinn, as always a pleasure to visit your post
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