For too many years, back in the day, when I was an elementary principal, every year like clockwork my second graders would go on their class trip to Jenkinson Aquarium. They would board the bus, teachers and classroom mothers in tow, for the too long trip down to Point Pleasant Beach.
Main reason--to see the penguins. Sure, there were other attractions. And the kids even went to nearby Point Pleasant Beach to collect shells and eat their lunch, but nothing could beat the lure of the penguin.
One year, a penguin came to us, and you would have thought Santa Claus himself arrived laden with gifts. The excitement floated up the hallways into my office. The penguin was let loose to wander from one classroom to another. What a sight to watch that magnificent animal, dressed like a butler, waddle into a classroom to the gasps and screams of second graders.
So how can I resist when my sister Karen, who was renting a house down the Jersey shore near the aquarium, suggests I come over for the day.
"We can go to Jenkinson Aquarium," she says, quite casually.
My heart starts racing as all the memories of my second graders flood back. "Did you say Jenkinson Aquarium?"
"Sure, it's not too far from where we're staying."
It is the perfect plan because the weather that day is promising to be iffy. A nice quiet ride down to my sister's. A fun visit to an aquarium. My lovely niece Sam promises to go with us.What can go wrong?
Chucky meows near my feet.
"Oh, no," I say. "An aquarium is no place for a cat." Fish will be too much of a temptation for a rascal cat to be on his best behavior. "I'm going solo on this trip."
Or so I think. He'd heard the penguin stories over the years. He knows darn well what a penguin is. He's even watched March of the Penguins so he knows their death defying story of survival.
It would have been a perfect visit. Jenkinson Aquarium is a cool place crowded with moms and kids. A healthy vibrant kind of energy pushes you along from exhibit to exhibit. Through the murky glass we see turtles and seals.
And all kinds of strange looking fish.
Of course, as we ooh and aah, Chucky meows and meows, impatiently impatient to see what he's come to see.
Unfortunately, the only exhibit that Chucky wants to see are the penguins. I am strategic. Leave the penguins until the end. We may never get out of there once he lays his cat eyes on them.
Now I am fascinated, too. They are almost human like--the way they walk and seem to be looking directly at you.
That is the problem. The perky penguin looks directly at Chucky and Chucky saunters up to the glass and looks directly at the penguin.
By some miracle--it is nearing lunch. Moms and kids have wandered off. The penguin staff have left to get the penguin lunch of fish. We are alone in the exhibit.
There is a protocol to viewing the penguins. No tapping on the glass. You can look but that's it. Chucky seldom follows any rule exactly. He puts his pink nose to the glass. The penguin moves closer.
What is this rascal cat going to do? I step closer in anticipation, ready for anything, remembering how he snuck into the camel's fenced in enclosure. There is no way he's getting into the penguin enclosure. That's impossible. Or is it?
Without warning, Chucky rears on his two hind legs so his belly touches the glass. His two front paws press forward. He lands square against that same glass partition.
I expect the penguin to step back. That's what I would have done if I were a penguin. But he doesn't. He raises one of his wings and makes contact.
Cat paw to penguin wing.
I can't believe it.
I reach for my camera. This will make animal history. I take the shot, but by the time I click, the penguin has already backed away, distracted by a staffer who has shown up at that very second with his fish lunch.
Chucky, for all his rascally ways, has always been a kind of ambassador of good will. Despite the lack of photographic evidence, I am so proud of him that day in the aquarium.
