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Well, I'll give my best rendition of the story and I expect that people will send me corrections to it. But here's the way I remember it....
I don't know exactly when it was but I recall that Greg was about 5 so that would put it at 1974. So we were on the Markey family vacation at Renfrew Park. It was early one morning around 8am. Pretty much everyone was still asleep except for Greg because that's what 5-year-old boys do. He was in attic in the "Presidential" room. I think that I was sleeping in the attic as well in the other room facing the mansions.
Greg is awake by himself, trying to find something to do so he starts looking out the window. His eyes quickly pick up some movement on the Harrington's roof (number 12). He looks a little closer and realizes that what he sees is a small animal. Not a squirrel, racoon or chipmunk but real live monkey!
There was a monkey playing on the Harington's roof!
Paul was still asleep in the room so Greg immediatley starts saying "Paul, there's a monkey on the roof!" Well, Paul was not happy to be woken up this early and not really paying attention to the content of the message, so he just says "Greg be quiet and go back to bed". Greg is persistent, obviously thinking that if Paul doesn't see this happy guest, no one will ever believe the story. So he continues to push "Paul, there's a monkey on the roof!"
As Greg gets louder and more animated, Paul figures he needs to get up and humor Greg by looking at whatever he thinks he sees. If he just looks and can say, "that's nice", he'll be able to go back to bed and quiet Greg. When he does look out the window he cannot believe his eyes. He's instantly awake and yells "There's a monkey on the roof! There's a monkey on the Harrington's roof!".
Within minutes the whole house is awake and looking at the Harrington's house trying to get their head around the odd reality that there's a monkey out there. Soon everyone from our house and the Harringtons are outside trying to coax the visitor off the roof. Kids making "eeek, eeek" sounds or singing the bugs bunny organ grinder song but nothing would bring it down.
Celia, in her divine wisdom and natural connection with animals, knows the easy way to bring the little guy down. She goes inside and brings out a banana. So simple! Within minutes the monkey had cautiously worked its way down the side of their house and eventually was comfortable enough with Celia to take little bites of banana from her.
From there my memory gets a little fuzzy but I seem to remember that animal control (aka the dog catcher) was called and our little friend was taken away peacfully and without resistance. I don’t think we ever got any closure on where the monkey came from or what happened to him but we have the story to tell. And now a website to commemorate the event.
Eeek!
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