About the Author

author photo

Jim Hyde is the Editor and designer of NewEnglandTimes.Com and ExploringNewEngland.com. He is a Jesse H. Neal Award winning writer who has served as Managing Editor of three magazines. he has written two syndicated columns, was Editor of "The DeskTop" newsletter, Co-Author of "The Plain English Guide to Desktop Publishing," and a multiple award-winning Web site designer. He is best known for having designed an written Supermodel.com, which was among the Top 100 Most Visited Sites in 1996 and 1997.

See All Posts by This Author

What Can You Do With an 8-Foot Tall Gorilla?

September 6th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Most marketing folks are familiar with “guerilla marketing,” but at least two stores in New England prefer the real thing, Gorilla marketing.

For reasons as yet unclear to those in marketing, the shopkeepers’ beliefs are that gorillas help bring people into their shops. A large stuffed one sits in a chair outside Shaw’s General Store on Main Street in Stowe, VT, legs crossed and wearing sunglasses. He/she (it’s not anatomically correct) meets and greets many tourists, who find his appearance appealing enough to just have to go inside.

According to www.bangornews.com, the second gorilla, eight-feet tall, stood outside a flea market in East Machias, Maine. I’m using past tense here because he was pilfered in broad daylight.

Mechanized, it was able to move its arms, but that apparently wasn’t sufficient to prevent its being purloined.

Last seen on August 31st, it enticed people to head into Sandy’s Sales, the flea market owned by Lowell Miller.

Miller is still scratching his head in disbelief as he ponders how someone could have made off with the heavy, 8-foot ape as quickly and stealthily as they did. The Bangor News quotes him as asking philosophically, “Who the h… would ever steal a gorilla as heavy as that thing was?”

State police are on the lookout for the beast, but believe that it’s now probably a new roommate in a college student’s dorm room, far more adorned with all types of college fashion and paraphernalia than the gorilla at Shaws.

So, what should you do if you encounter an 8-foot tall gorilla? There are probably a thousand punch lines that answer that question. But the best in this case is to alert the East Machias police so it can be recovered and returned to its job beckoning tourists to visit Sandy’s Sales.

If you’re shy about calling the police, send a comment to this post using a fictitious name, tell us where the gorilla is and we’ll contact the police for you.



Tags: , ,

There Are 5 Responses So Far. »

  1. Gravatar

    Comment by Cliff Calderwood on 6 September 2008:

    Jim,

    It could be that some of its tribe decided it was time to return it to its true habitat in the misty jungles of Africa or somewhere else - but certainly not Maine!

    Anybody else have other suggestions?

    Cliff

  2. Gravatar

    Comment by James H. Hyde on 6 September 2008:

    Hi, Cliff,

    Thanks for your comment! You’re right, of course. There are precious few gorillas in Maine. But, I think it’s more likely a Big Foot tribe mistook it as one of their own inasmuch as 8-foot-tall gorillas are even more scarce. They likely liberated it and returned it to the Maine wilderness. They may think it odd that all it does is move its arms, but it’s not likely in someone’s freezer in Georgia. We do know it’s not a halloween costume, not if it weighed that much. If I get an email from a Yeti who wants to turn it in to the police you’ll be the first to know. It’ll probably write the way Chewbaka talks. That’s how I’ll know it’s a Yeti. Doesn’t matter. I’d like to get it back to its rightful owner through a tip from either man or beast.

    Jim

    Jim

  3. Gravatar

    Comment by Bethany Marquee on 9 September 2008:

    To help in your investigation I would say that they would have had to have had a getaway car, because as you say carrying an 8 foot gorilla can’t be easy, and if they did have a car it would have had to have been quite a large car to fit it in!

  4. Gravatar

    Comment by Eurostar Eric on 25 November 2008:

    My home village of Mumbles, a popular tourist hotspot in Wales had a 10 foot Gorilla in it’s pier that was stolen in 1999. It returned some time after but was sporting a bikini and no longer looking like the male it left. Read more here.

    It too was great for marketing and attracting tourists!

    Joe

  5. Gravatar

    Comment by Cliff Calderwood on 30 November 2008:

    Sex-change Gorilla’s? We may be straying too far from our New England travel roots here.

Post a Response

I reserve the right to delete any comments I deem as inappropriate or comment spam.

Please note by submitting a question or comment you're agreeing to my terms of service, which are: you relinquish any subsequent rights of ownership to your material by submitting it on this site.