Anne and the Gorilla

I know I forget if I have already written something, and in the early days, I just would reread the blog and see what I’d written. 430 some stories later, it’s too much to read and I guess I’ve told so many of these tales for so long that it seems like I wrote it. So, for the sake of those of you who haven’t heard it I’ll tell the story of Anne and the Gorilla.


Long ago and far away in a mystical land…OK, in the early 80’s in Detroit it was a relatively quiet day in the offices. Jerry, our fearless leader, was on the phone with (I believe) the Vice President of Chrysler Design, and all was going very well. These calls were usually revolving around some sort of delicate negotiations, in which we had on our begging suits and we prayed for help and understanding from the corporate giants. Often, we felt like Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton in these kind of things, just trying to make the big score.

Jerry’s secretary Anne (she was only there in the late 70’s and early 80’s so it’s easy to date) was having a birthday. The office staff would be having a cake or something later on, but not during the call, because it was pretty easy to hear what was going on even if you closed the door.

Someone, I know not who, had arranged for a gorilla to visit the offices to give greetings (a gorilla-gram I believe) to Anne and maybe bring flowers or something, I can’t remember. However, Anne was pretty young and cute (a married woman as well) and the Gorilla, along with Anne’s exuberant screams, picked her up and ran around the office with Anne in his arms. There was huge laughter and howling and the look of death on Jerry’s face as he was trying to explain to the V.P. Design that a gorilla had just come into the office. Unlike Chrysler, we did not have (or need usually), tight security on our building.

I must assume at this juncture that we were able to explain, and he was able to get off the phone. It was an amazing experience.