Once again it is Friday and time for a topic chosen by the LBC, a group of writers who take turns choosing a subject to write on and to post weekly. This time the subject is” Fifteen Minutes of Fame”. I have listed all the writers for this group on my sidebar under Consortium Writers and I invite you to go to their blogs and enjoy their different writing styles and their creative approach to the subject.
I think that all of us have had fifteen minutes of fame, but I am willing to bet that not too many have had their fifteen minutes of fame with a 280 pound gorilla.
In the 1980’s my husband John and I were active in the Cat Fancy. We had converted our double garage into a cattery and were breeding and showing Manx cats. It was hard work and it was challenging, but oh so much fun when we left a cat show with a blue ribbon or two.
As it happened at that time, a famous study of the Gorilla’s ability to communicate was taking place in Northern California. Dr. Penny Patterson began her study of Koko, a young gorilla at Stanford. The Gorilla Foundation was formed and her study moved further away into the hills near the Bay area. Dr. Patterson along with Ron Cohn photographed and documented Koko’s abilities in many books and publications including National Geographic.
This celebrated Gorilla adopted a little kitten which she named All Ball because All Ball was a Manx and had no tail. which to a savvy gorilla resembled a ball. All Ball was the love of her maternal life and she was intrigued with the little kitten and very protective and caring toward it. All of this is included in a popular children’s book, Koko’s Kitten.
Those of you who are familiar with the story know that tragically All Ball lost her life when she wandered into the road and was hit by a truck. Koko grieved the loss of her friend and the newspapers found the human interest story a major attraction for their papers.
So when my husband John saw the article about Koko’s sorrow over the loss of a kitten and the foundation’s search for a new pet, he called the Gorilla Foundation, announced that he and his wife owned the Bear Den Cattery and we were expecting kittens within the next ten days. He offered one of the kittens from that litter to Dr. Patterson for Koko.
As it turns out, our mother cat had a false pregnancy and we had to let the Foundation know that there would not be a kitten soon. Most kittens are born in the Spring or the Fall and this was mid-winter. By this time, I was as determined as John to find a Manx kitten for Koko. So we called around to friends in the Cat Fancy and luckily found a little orange kitten that the breeder was willing to sell to us to take to Koko.
Meanwhile, I was teaching at Inyokern Elementary about 13 mile from my home town of Ridgecrest, California and my students were fascinated with my stories of Koko. We made a huge bulletin board on one wall and titled it “Koko, We Love You”. We studied Gorillas and we studied their natural habitats and we wrote letters to Koko, and drew pictures of cats to entertain her.

It was a month before the kitten would be old enough to leave its mother, and during that month phone calls flew back and forth between Penny and us. She received the letters and the pictures that my students had drawn of kittens and Koko had chosen a tail-less one that she liked. We thought this was a good sign.
Then it was time to take the kitten to its new family. We picked it up from the breeder and headed for the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside about 2o miles from San Francisco and the kitten’s new home. Penny and Ron were waiting anxiously for us at the house and after greetings and breeder advice about care of the six week old kitten, all of us headed toward the area that housed both Koko and another gorilla named Michael.
I was thrilled with seeing Koko. As Penny suggested, I sat down near a barred floor length area. Koko came over and sat on the other side of the bars. She looked at me and signed “Visitor Stinks”! Being insulted is never easy. Being insulted by a famous gorilla is mind-shattering. Penny explained that she used the same sign for flower and she thought that Koko was intrigued by my humane society pin which resembled a four petalled flower. Koko put a hand through the bars and looked closer at the pin. Then she signed “Open” and Penny said, “Open your mouth, she wants to see your fillings.” Well, I wasn’t about to say no, so I opened wide while Koko looked inside at the many silver fillings in my mouth. Then there was a strangely quiet moment when Koko and I simply looked at each other and I saw intelligence and dignity that will always be remembered with awe.
The moment was quickly broken when Penny put the box down on the ground and signed that she had brought Koko a kitten. It was obvious that Koko was interested. She motioned for Penny to turn the kitten around so she could see the back side. She seemed happy to observe the lack of a tail.
It was at this time, that John and I said goodbye and headed back home . It was important that there be as little distraction as possible when the kitten was actually given to Koko and we wanted it to go as smoothly as possible.
Of course, for the next few weeks, Koko and the kitten which she named Lips or Lipstick were photographed, and video taped, and all of it documented for publication. Our own paper called and interviewed us and yes, we had our fifteen minutes of fame.
Looking back, I am glad that we made a grieving gorilla a little happier. Lipstick was not as close to Koko as All Ball had been, but Michael surprisingly was completely besotted by the kitten. He called it, Banana. We were told that Michael’s reward for good behavior was having the kitten in an area where Michael could watch it play. I believe Lipstick or Banana was finally won over by Michael and Koko, some years later was given another kitten, named Smokey.
My 15 minutes of fame burned brightly and flickered out, but every once in awhile, I find myself reading the story of Koko’s Kitten to a group of young children and then telling them about how we brought Koko her little orange kitten. I can hardly wait until my grand babies are old enough for me to read the story to them. I think they will like the idea that their Nana brought a kitten to Koko and stayed to show her tooth-fillings to an interested gorilla.