During the years of evolving in his profession in Springfield, Ohio, my dad became aware of how rapid graphic technology was developing. Changes were taking place with photography, film making, sound technology and education. His beloved boss was retiring and that would change his position in the hierarchy. He recognized a possible opportunity. He desired additional education to augment his skills with new audio-visual knowledge. That meant change.
The family moved to Bloomington, Indiana as I entered junior high school. Dad attended classes at Indiana University. The move into a compact home in a neighborhood with a dense population of kids also required us to ride a bus to school.
Moving away from the environs of childhood in Ohio at a tender age, we had to make new friends in another town. This disruption frustrated our meager attempts to fit in. The home situation remained frustrating and my sister and I realized being associated with John was a detriment. As we advanced through the grades, we formulated a way to stay far away from him and be safe. When Paula and I passed one another in the hall at junior high school, rather than acknowledge each other, we remained anonymous in an effort to avoid the risk of association. We would resume being fast friends at home in safety.
At that time, I was on fire to become a good drummer. The music department at IU provided me with an opportunity to take lessons from a great drumming college student. After my junior high school classes each Thursday, I went over to the IU campus to take my lesson. Afterwards I met dad, who was working in the graphics lab. He would show me what he was doing with photography and sometimes set me up in an empty darkroom with an enlarger and show me how to make my own prints.
By this time my circus producing abilities matured. By summer I would put on an even larger production, adopting the name my dad and his friend Fred used many years ago; Spark Circus.
I began building cages for chickens, rabbits and the turtles I accumulated. While I painted promotional signs, Paula began making hats and necklaces out of packing peanuts and paper bowls. The neighborhood kids were curious about what we were doing and were recruited one by one to help. Soon we had two crews; the boys helping me with manly activities and the girls making prize and craft items under Paula’s watchful eye.
The masculine duties were pounding stakes into the ground and setting up and climbing the center pole we erected in the backyard. Stretching a rope tight enough to walk across became a challenge that required accumulating ever larger stretching-devices. We practiced Indian dancing routines, acrobat tumbling and hanging upside-down from the trapeze bar on the swing-set. We rehearsed these acts until we achieved an admirable level of perfection.
During the girl’s production of a mountain of prizes, Paula would pause to rehearse one of the skits she created. We had learned about skits on family vacation. The Lutheran church had a family summer camp near Lakeside, Ohio. While there, mom and dad would compose a clever skit and the entire family would act it out in front of the others. Paula had begun writing stories in her Pinfoot the Pony comics. Now inspired by our family vacation skits, she created routines for her peers to perform.
One routine Paula created for our circus utilized a chorus line of her girls pointing in rhythm, one at a time, and then changing their pose and repeating a cute-over-there dialog that ended with all of them falling in a heap.
Thanks to an abundance of Beatle wigs and a neighbor kid with a buzz haircut, the circus had a barber shop skit that began with a very furry head and ended up with a faux surprised kid with a bald noggin.
All this rehearsing united us on circus day when, like a real show, all of our equipment and our big top (a converted army surplus parachute) was marched, carried or pulled to the vacant lot next to the local swimming pool to be set up. We arranged the set-up to occur in the morning by our team of kids, followed by presenting five shows. The activity brought the entire neighborhood together. My circus benefited the community pool and produced a considerable profit for my investment. It also gave me the idea for a career path to pursue.
Letterfly Writes 