The
Monkey-Rope
By Barney Morgan
IPS Features

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The Monkey-Rope

Before I go any further with this project of writing columns, I want to explain why I chose the title, "The Monkey-Rope."

It comes from Herman Melville's great novel, "Moby Dick." It's the title of a chapter, 72, in which the narrator, Ishmael, describes his job of being connected by a rope to the harpooner, Queequeg, while Queequeg does the dangerous work on the carcass of a dead whale. Ishmael uses the rope to pull Queequeg this way or that as needed to protect him from such hazards as being crushed between the whale and the ship or falling into the frenzied sharks feeding on the whale. Ishmael also knows that with the rope tied to his belt, he could be yanked into his own misfortune. And he thinks about how in many ways we human beings are all connected to each other and depend on each other, much as he and Queequeg do.

The whalers called the rope the monkey rope. I have never figured out just why Melville hyphenated the term, making it "monkey-rope." Perhaps it was after the practice of some street musicians of keeping a monkey tied on a rope. I would not have used the hyphen. But since I am appropriating Melville's term, it seems fitting to take his hyphen as part of the plagiarism.

Even before I read that powerful passage in that wonderful book, I had been aware of many strong but unseen connections between people. Since reading Melville's thoughts about it, it has never been far from my consciousness.

It amazes me how often something happens that reminds me of, and connects me to, someone I currently know or knew years ago. Some pop into my mind more than others, of course, depending largely on how well I know or knew them and how prominently they are or have been in my life. One woman elementary school teacher and two college professors, all long dead, speak to me surprisingly often from their graves. I think I know exactly what Shakespeare meant when he said, "I am a part of all that I have met."

Nine years ago, at my suggestion, about half a dozen other guys and I who had attended the same little rural elementary school together started meeting for breakfast once a month. We hadn't been together as a group in about 50 years. The reason I had suggested that we get together was that as I had grown older, I realized more and more how those childhood relationships had stayed with me and influenced me in my adult life. We had been very important to each other at a very important developmental time in our lives. Not only going to school together, but also playing baseball and swimming together during summer vacation, camping and hunting together as we grew up, talking together about important things like sports and girls and religion. I drank my first beer -- Pabst Blue Ribbon in a long-neck bottle -- on a camping trip with three of those guys.

After four years one member of the group died. Three years later one was murdered. Then another one died. And another. A few weeks ago the last one besides me died. At the memorial service I had trouble paying attention to the speakers saying things speakers always say at funerals. I kept thinking of a night about 60 years earlier when my friend being memorialized and I -- just the two of us -- went camping in the mountains.

Just before dark, we climbed a jagged, straight-up bluff and made camp on top of it, where we had a clear view of the valley we lived in. We had no tent or other shelter. After it got dark, a violent thunderstorm blew up, and we knew we had to go back down that bluff, to get to a sheltered spot at the bottom. We had no light. We went back down by taking turns of one going ahead, holding onto the other until he could find firm footing, then holding steady for the one behind to hold onto and follow. There was no way either of us could have made it down that bluff safely without the other guy.

The only thing we had was the monkey-rope.