The Missing Links or "The Apes of Wrath"

     When you’re 17 life can be pretty amazing. It was for me. If I were to decide to write about the experiences I had in my 17^th year it could turn out to be at least a full book and perhaps a 3 volume set. For now I’m going to tell about one particular event. It was in June of 1973. I was working at a movie theater and among my co-workers were my best buddy Lonny and my cousin Philip. The new feature that week was the final movie of the original 5 movie set of “Planet of the Apes”. This one was called “Battle For The Planet of the Apes”. As a promotional we ran all five ape movies starting at 10 a.m. The current movie was featured both at 6 and 10 p.m. The original movie was also featured twice. Once at 10 a.m. and again at 8 p.m. It was such a popular event that it was held over for 3 weeks. Back in those days it was rare for a picture to stay in the theater for more than a week. Oh it would come back around as a second feature (remember getting to see 2 movies for the price of 1?) sometime later. It would also spend some time in the drive-ins after it’s run at the indoor theaters like the one I worked at.

     The second night we were showing these movies the manager came to Philip and said he needed something picked up from another theater across town. When I say across town you must understand that meant about 40 miles. Houston is a big town! My friend Lonny and I were just getting off for the day and had nothing else to do so we tagged along with Philip. It was one crazy cool cruising night. We took Philip’s car, a 1968 Chevy Camaro which was suped-up with loud exhaust, slicks on the back, and a faster than it should have been V-8 under the hood. It took about an hour to get across town and get the items we were after. Little did we know that the “items” were yet another promotional tool for the ape movies. What were they? Would you believe 3 very lifelike ape masks just like in the movie! Well, our fertile 17 year old minds immediately seized the day. As soon as we drove out of the parking lot of that other theater we stopped and dawned those ape masks for the ride back across town.

     Now there’s a couple of things you might want to picture along with this. First, Philip was restricted from driving without his glasses. So, he found a way to get those glasses of his on the mask which made for a very intelligent looking ape. Second, no A/C in that car meant the windows were down. So, to keep the image going we slumped down so that just our heads were visible to other drivers. We had to drive through the center of downtown Houston and there was a red light every 10 feet or so. The reactions by people were quite funny. We were deadpanning the whole time acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world for 3 apes to be driving a 1968 Camaro through the streets of Houston. Some kids screamed with fright while others laughed. Some adults, too old for such nonsense (in their minds that is) simply ignored us while others pointed and shook their heads in wonder.

     So the idea came up that perhaps we should stop by Lonny’s house and scare his little brother and sister. From what I can tell his brother has never gotten over it while his sister relates the trauma she endured in a stand-up comedy routine! Lonny’s mother was not amused however and I seriously wondered for years if she ever forgave me. Lonny tells me she did.

     Finally, we get back to the theater and we walk in among the movie-goers wearing the masks and generally got a lot of laughs. I tell this story because it reminds me that sometimes we forget how to let our hair down (sorry about that) and take a light-hearted approach to life when perhaps being light-hearted is just what the heart needs. Philip lives in Alaska these days having been banned from Texas for aping around too much. Lonny lives in the Dallas area and is perhaps the first bald ape in history. As for me, I live in the country of East Texas and over the years have become as big as an ape. I tell Lonny that between the two of us we’re bald and fat. But that night in 1973 when the world was hearing about the fighting in Israel, some really sick men who had murdered 27 young boys in our hometown of Houston, and questions were flying about something called “Watergate” three 17 year-old boys were not to be deterred from the joy that everyone should get to experience in their youth.