Tag: fantasy

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Circus Paula

 After three seasons of working hard, making money and accumulating additional skills, my parents became used to my being on a circus. They thought that a summer outdoors would be good for my sister Paula, who, as the only child left at home, had become a recluse. Between her freshman and sophomore years in college, rather than spend another summer at home in her room, our parents encouraged her to join me for a tour on the circus. Once again, we were to be a team, but this was a much more turbulent situation. With three years’ experience accomplishing tasks in a variety of extreme situations with catastrophe being a regular part of the scene, I had developed through it all the necessary drive to continue with a show must go on mentality. Hopefully I could be a good example to my sister.

I rendezvoused late spring after the disaster in Texas at our parent’s home (now in Kansas City) to implement this plan. After making many last-minute preparations, including outfitting the recently purchased cargo trailer with comforts for my sister, we scrambled from Kansas City across the Midwest to get to the opening town in Ontario.

                Equipped with a calliope, we were to be the band on a big top upstart in Canada, a tour the perfect length to fill the summer until my sister went back to college. After driving all night, we arrived at the Port of Entry. The circus owner met us at the Canadian border to satisfy Customs, Immigration and arrange for us to enter the country. We then followed him to the venue. We arrived on a grassy lot at the edge of town to find a raggedy show, hastily assembled from various usable components and local resources. Although I had three seasons experience, upon sizing up this disheveled enterprise, I saw how it could work, but my sister was perhaps horrified.

The first few days we hastened to assume tasks on the tour already underway, and our cherry pie in the familiar custom of one day stands. Paula was thrown into this rigorous routine that I was already familiar with. We got up early every morning to drive to the next town, where everything with this tented city was set up again. Then give two shows, tear it down and load it each night. The big top was best described as a patchy sky in the air, held up by poles that were young trees only weeks ago. Seating was an antique variety of jacks and planks. Rigging, banners, ticket boxes, ring curb, platforms, props, trucks, lighting and curtains were all of the same pedigree. She observed my relentless zeal and joined in to contribute what she could. Soon as a team we were making contributions on several fronts of what the entertainment hungry patrons of rural Canada got to see. The summer of one day stands on this raggedy circus required lots of creativity. 

My sister did step forward out of her shell. Prior to show time at the side show, I became David McDavid the Scottish highlander who plays the bagpipes and she became the Punch and Judy puppeteer. An old suitcase with some beat up puppets were meticulously brought back to enjoy a new life with her sewing repairs, wardrobe upgrades and some fresh paint to bring smiles and laughter to the children and the entire crowd in the side show. As the circus puppeteer, she created her own version of the traditional story line that accompanied the presentation. Then, after our acts were over, we raced back to the big top to get ready for the show.

The crowds were already filing into the tent by the time Paula and I returned from the side show to climb on the bandstand to prepare to play the music for the big show. The drums were set up on a platform in front of the calliope that enjoyed a prominent position at the side of the big top, next to the performer’s entrance. During the two shows we gave daily, she played the calliope, pounding out the peppy tunes learned during her adolescent piano lessons and experimented with personal favorites such as show tunes from “Fiddler on the roof” and “Cabaret.” I played the drums, enhancing her music with percussion effects and punctuating each performer’s efforts. In addition, I also announced the show. As each act shared their developed specialty and enthusiasm with the crowd, the tunes and effects created improved the appearance of their labors. 

The circus was populated with four families that had lots of children and all of them performed in the show. The Michael family had toured with me on Fisher Bros Circus and became our haven among these families. Dennis and Lynnie radiated the same level of love and concern for their daughters towards us, and even included us on special family excursions. The Lang troupe proved to be the most fun both with their teeter board act that featured kids flying through the air to arms, shoulders and elevated chairs, and in the backyard during the regular cookouts. The Frazier family was made up of red-headed meanness, our token source of chaos and this carried through with the antics in their trampoline act. Bob Rayborn was our canvas boss and with his wife Virginia had two boys that also added to the relentless fun going on. My sister wasn’t inclined to want to make friends. Instead she maintained her pattern of reluctance around others as a reminder of what we had experienced as children. 

I had found alcohol in the early years of being on the road away from home. Discovering relief from the awful taste of shame, humiliation and the feelings of being less than, after a few beers, I felt like I was able to fly, to rise up, and interact with others in a happy, confident manner and join in and be part of the group. Between and after the shows, there were campfires and bar-b-ques with lots of pot-luck to go around. The parents visited, many also enjoying the stout Canadian brew while the children played and we all got along famously. It was truly a fun season.

During the jump between towns, many times we drove through virgin wilderness. Seeing pristine lakes of crystal clear water proved to be too tempting for me to pass by. After stopping the rig, I dove into the clean water with my bar of soap to scrub up only to discover that the water had probably been completely frozen only months ago. Refreshed and invigorated, the trip would resume towards our next destination in this magical land. 

The tour through Canada introduced us to a new flavor of society, vastly different from the United States. The British form of monarchy was evident in the characteristics of the language of the highways, merchants, businesses, and community infrastructure of government, police and firemen along with subtle architectural differences. By far the most spectacular feature of this land was the natural beauty. The way each community interacted with the terrain years ago to become the thriving pockets of humanity evidenced by distinct manners of co-existing with their surroundings.

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Circus Day

As a tyke holding my mother’s hand, while walking onto a grass lot, I saw my first canvas tents in the air with flags flying. I heard the tinny voice of the side show barker over a loudspeaker mix with the distant sounds of roaring lions, the exotic smell of elephants, cotton candy and popping popcorn.  

While taking in this sensory overload, I heard my mother confide, “Your dad would love this.” 

I was sold on the spot! 

I was inspired by my dad’s love for many things. My dad loved railroad trains, photography, dirigibles, and the civil war. Later, I would hear about the circus of his youth. I savored the stories about the remarkable sights he witnessed during the summer when he was a boy. He woke before sunrise to gather with the other boys at the railroad tracks to wait for the circus train to arrive. When the distant headlight first appeared, its piercing light provided the first spike of excitement. 

He told me about the early morning feast for their eyes as the circus train moved into position and started the unloading process of wagons, horses, trucks, elephants and special equipment from the flat and stock cars. This process took place with amazing fluency. He watched an incredible enterprise populated with hundreds of people, portable objects of wonder and animals of all kinds unload destined for the show grounds.  

A beehive of activity resulted in a canvas city rising into the air before noon. An entire spectrum of preparations were completed by a predictable time. The two shows; a matinee and an evening show were given the same day. After the second show, the entire aggregation was taken down and reloaded on the train. When complete, a steam locomotive began to pull this amazing collection of everything wonderful out of town and into the dark toward its next destination.  

Although not the big railroad circus, this version traveling on a fleet of trucks that came to our town was amazing none the less. After seeing this big top circus, I became keen about seeing it every year. When summer came, I began to look for circus posters in store windows and on telephone poles. 

Imprinted with the same love my dad had for the circus, I began my pattern of getting up early to see the morning arrival of the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros Circus, the large canvas big top truck show that made a regular visit to our fairgrounds.  

As I grew, I became able to get a job helping set up the tents early on circus day. Then after seeing the show, like my dad before me, I was inspired with the idea of producing an even greater circus production in our backyard.  

I created apparatus for my backyard circus and painted the decorative advertising that goes with such a production. I was shaped by new thought, old tradition, love and enthusiasm to find adventure with my creative outlet. 

Each summer I produced a different revue. The usual circus performance was made up of children recruited to perform various acts – clowns, trapeze and acrobats. One year, I made cigar box guitars and a potato chip can drum set for a Beatles concert.  

After receiving a chemistry set and becoming familiar with several sensational experiments, my best friend Arnold Vila helped me create a show called “Chemistry Magic.” Working with limited resources didn’t slow us down. One demonstration aptly called; purple smoke was produced by cooking iodine crystals over a Bunsen burner. Because we used the same beaker later in the show we had to cook off all the crystals until gone and the cloud of smoke produced almost asphyxiated our audience.  

Even though I felt my shows were worth every bit of the dime I charged, my mother always served Kool-Aid and cookies to everyone who attended, so she knew they got their money’s worth.   

A blend of these creative activities coalesced in all sorts of childhood endeavors that included display building and painting artwork on virtually everything that moved. After discovering my dad’s boyhood model circus wagon building efforts, I began building my miniature circus from scratch.