Ape Day

You may find this hard to believe, but the annual Ape Day celebration that my older brothers developed 12 years ago is one of my favorite, most anticipated holidays of the year.

It began as a bit of silliness when Cris and Dusty were attending Asbury College at the same time. They hung around with the same group of friends, and for some reason, they thought it would be a laugh to dedicate an entire Saturday to watching all 5 of the Planet of the Apes movies. Little did they know then that their goofy idea would become the basis for an ongoing, beloved tradition.

Always held the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Ape Day became a major event for the Asbury crowd, each year requiring a bigger venue to accommodate the loyal participants. Of course, after the first few years, Cris and Dusty had finished their time at Asbury College, but the tradition lived on.

Old friends who had helped found this celebration of bad Sci-Fi movies would sometimes travel quite a ways to attend. In some cases, founders that had settled in areas too distant to make the trip hosted their own Ape Day, making it a nationwide holiday.

Each year, new traditions and rituals are added to our bizarre day of fun, including, but not limited to:

- Incredibly violent monkey fights between Scotty and Dusty, in which they put on ape masks, find some grass, and pound each other until one of them can’t take it anymore.

- The Passing of the Sacred Ape ritual, which takes place after every movie, and involves everyone in the room congregating in a circle, clapping and doing their best ape impressions as we pass around an ape statue, wearing a Packer’s uniform, that Dusty painted back in high school. The full extent of this rather terrifying ceremony has developed over time, but if I’m not mistaken, The Sacred Ape was present even at the very first Ape Day.

- T-Shirt making. We don’t do it every year, but at this point, I think I’ve acquired at least 4, each unique and awesome.

- When the remake Planet of the Apes movie came out in 2001, we of

course incorporated that into the festivities. If you’re going to do something, do it right. The first few years we held an Ape Day Eve to watch the new movie, but now it has become a part of Ape day, extending our celebration, which now lasts from 10am until around 9 or 10pm.

Only themed snacks are allowed, and you wouldn’t believe how creative we get with this. I for one am responsible for making ape faced cookies, which you can see depicted here. Jen and Sharon have been known to bake different kinds of cakes, either shaped like ape heads, or bearing a creative, series related name, such as “Damned Dirty Cake.” Without fail, Dusty and Sharon always

provide the “Monkey Poo”, which is a giant bowl of crumbled and mashed brownies with the added class of walnuts. Most years Jen makes hot apple cider, and we call it “Monkey Blood.” Every so often, someone will bring monkey bread and bananas. Usually we have a two liter of grape soda around that no one ever drinks, but it sits as a trophy, the letters “GR” scratched out with a Sharpie.

This year, Molly brought a crock of delicious pulled pork, and we had no choice but to call it “Simmering Simian.” One year, Cris made a bunch of beer ahead of time, then spent who knows how long developing labels for his “Ape Beer”, which depicted scenes from the movies. Scotty is famous for his diligent yearly modifications to boxes of Charleston Chews, placing cut-to-size post it notes over the letters “ES” to make them Charlton Chews (and if I remember correctly, he sometimes changes them to “Cheston Chews”) to honor the beloved hero in the series, Charlton Heston. He also revises the word “Vanilla” to “Gorilla” so that the flavor matches the day. Genius.

If you’re not weirded out right now, you probably should be. This is by far the strangest celebration I have ever come across, and I love it dearly. It’s a day of consistency and fellowship. So many things in my life have changed as I’ve grown from a child into an adult, and I don’t mean for better or worse, just different. But Ape Day is for the most part unchanging, and I can count on its silliness to give me a boost as I share these traditions with my family and friends, who fortunately are as goofy as I.