G for Goodall

                                                  How I Met Jane Goodall

           In 1974, I worked as a reporter for a small-town daily newspaper and the man I was married to, worked for the Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City. Zoo stories were easily available for my feature articles. Plus, let’s face it, photos of animals at the zoo need not meet professional standards to attract attention, and attention was my first priority as a reporter. Front page and all that.

          Dr. Roger Fouts was at the University of Oklahoma’s Institute of Primate Studies then. You may be familiar with his work with the chimpanzee Washoe who not only learned to communicate using American Sign Language for the Deaf, but taught a young chimpanzee to also use ASL.

Dr. Fouts arranged for Jane Goodall to speak on campus. It was not well-publicized. People at the zoo were told about it and that’s how I heard about it. Dr. Goodall was not that well-known here then.

I had read her book In the Shadow of Man. And I was very interested in hearing her speak. The book discussed her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania, including the first recorded observations of chimpanzees fashioning and using tools. Observations that led anthropologists to rethink the definition of ‘human.’

There were no more than 50 people there to hear her speak, so I did get to meet her and she signed my paper back copy of her book. She was very quiet to the point of shyness. She wore little make-up and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Not a typical celebrity, at all.

In 2007, she was back in Oklahoma as part of Oklahoma City University’s Distinguished Speakers Series. Maybe because of programs on public television or national geographic, whatever, now the woman was famous. I can’t tell you how many people were there, but the place was packed.

After her presentation, my daughter and I waited in a line snaking back and forth through the gym to get her signature and exchange a few words with her. Of course she didn’t remember me, but she did remember that time she spoke at OU. She thought those people then constituted a ‘crowd.’

She still was very quiet, though more calm than shy, I think. She still wore little make-up and her hair in a ponytail.