Civility

I was driving to my morning walk today, sitting idle at a red light when a car driven by a man came to a jarring stop just beside and a bit behind me, at the same time a young woman pulled up directly behind me. The man rolled down his window to spew astonishingly vile and obscene language at her - because she had pulled out in front of him. His tirade was not just vitriol it was hate-filled….I was stunned.

I spent the next hour on a 3 mile walk thinking about what I had just witnessed. It’s a topic I’ve been mulling over for a number of years now, this breakdown of social parameters that allows for such objectionable behavior, this lack of civility. And I began thinking that gorillas as a group would never tolerate that kind of over-the-top behavior. If a member of a gorilla troop becomes excessively unnecessarily aggressive for no apparent reason or for a perceived social slight, the other group members will shy away from him, eventually he will be exiled from the troop - in essence a social outcast.

I continued on my walk trying to find my way back to the beauty of this Autumn day, taking photographs, having a sweet conversation with a young man BMX biking, scooting a small snake off the bike path.  It seemed fitting that when I returned home I had a package from fellow gorilla keeper, Richard Johnstone-Scott of Jersey Island. It contained the book he had written about an extraordinary gorilla he had worked with for years, named Jambo. In August 1986, Jambo became famous for seemingly standing guard over a young boy that had fallen into his gorilla enclosure - eventually keepers arrived to assist in getting the boy out.  This event made news throughout the world by way of an amateur video. Jambo showed the rest of the world what we as gorilla keepers already knew; a gentle, altruistic side to their nature. On the cover of the book was a comment by the highly revered conservationist Gerald Durrell describing Jambo:  “A magnificent individual, courteous and gentle.” Words to ponder and embrace …..