Jukebox In My Head

So I'm taking out the trash Friday morning, stepping out the front door a few minutes before seven. A couple of ravens or crows (I couldn't tell) flew right over my head heading south. They rose as I watched them move away, their wings silently floating across the Moyers' yard.

I walked off the porch, still watching the birds, who were settling into a tall tree fifty feet away, three front-yards over. That's when I noticed the visitors. Two birds about four or five times the size of the ravens perched on the same branch.

Turkey vultures. I had seen ten of them circling above the CU property south of town Tuesday morning while walking up to the bus stop. The vultures are a part of the springtime experience in Boulder and other areas along the Front Range at this time of year.

I grabbed the binoculars and headed up the street, where I finally got a view of what turned out to be seven vultures in the tree. One seemed to be lying on the limb rather than standing. They were about forty or fifty feet from the ground.

Went back to get Billie, and there we both were, in our jammies, running up the street for the cheapest of thrills. A neighbor bringing out her trash saw us, and looked a bit askance at our attire. I pointed up to the birds. She knew them from living in Ontario. Not exactly fashionable-looking birds, we agreed. But magnificent nonetheless.

Took a shower, and I heard the sounds of our trash hauler coming down the street, sounding like a combat battalion, metal against metal. I ran back out after the truck passed, and though a couple had changed positions, all seven were still there. I saw one flapping huge wings circling for another perch.

I walked beneath them on the way to the bus stop and then caught a last glimpse as the bus took off on Table Mesa. I wondered how many times I had walked beneath them and never even knew they were there.

I was up early Saturday again, but no vultures. Kept watching all weekend, but they never came back. A temporary roost.

Posted by Leland Rucker at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Billie gave me something special for Christmas. It’s an abstract painting by an artist who just celebrated his 75th birthday in April. Like many former movie stars, he now lives in retirement in Palm Beach and has his own page in the Internet Movie Database.

He is one of the earliest actors I can remember. He co-starred with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Hara in several Tarzan films and worked with Bela Lugosi and Ronald Reagan. His last movie was 1967 with Rex Harrison. When he grins, he can pull his top lip to his nose.

His real name is Jiggs, but he’s best-known by his stage name, Cheeta. And yes, I’m speaking of the chimpanzee that played opposite Weissmuller, who today. Besides his artistic bent, is also the world’s oldest chimp. Chimps in the wild generally are lucky to live to the age of 40, which makes him a wonder of nature, the Methuselah of Chimps. He specializes in what is being called in art circles, “Ape-Stract” painting.

I have been fascinated with Cheeta since I first found out he was still alive some twenty-five years ago. His real name is Jiggs, and he lives with Don Westfall, the nephew of the man who plucked him from the Liberian jungle when he was six months old and began training him for the Tarzan films. Westfall and Cheeta have been inseparable for the last sixteen years.

I was moved to tears by the wonderful J.R. Moehringer piece in the Los Angeles Times, written earlier this year to mark Cheeta’s 75th birthday. Cheeta is a lucky exception to what happens to most ex-animal actors, many of whom wind up in cages, traveling shows or worse.

Cheeta lives at Westfall’s C.H.E.E.T.A. Primate Sanctuary with several other ex-animal actors, and he even helps pay the rent with his paintings.

I’ll hold his work up against anybody’s.

Although Cheeta has a star in Palm Springs, several efforts to get him a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame have been unsuccessful. Click here to sign the online petition to give Cheeta a richly deserved honor – Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, hell even Donald Duck all have plaques. Cheeta Rules!

The Moehringer pieceis easily the best thing written about Cheeta, but here is a scene with Bela Lugosi. Tell me this isn’t a brilliant performance.

Posted by Leland Rucker at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)