Tag: writing

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The Circus

“It takes courage to grow up 

and become who you really are.”

e. e. cummings

Cherry Pie

Bill imprinted his son with a love for the circus due to the experience he had as a boy. The primary reason for this fascination was the enormity of the tented city and the swiftness of moving every day by rail. Several trains brought attractions from all over the world, the infrastructure to support hundreds of people, and the venue for the audience along with an amazing number of animals.

The amount of work accomplished rapidly on the giant tented circus during the golden age of the big top, utilized many clever devices unique to the culture to facilitate these accomplishments. For those brave enough to join, in the midst of this staggering amount of work getting done every day, every new rookie was asked a question, “Do you want some cherry pie?”

Have you have ever been the greenhorn? Perhaps you remember the anguish of learning a new job, wondering “will I ever fit in?” and the struggle to learn an unfamiliar skill from a new boss. The offer of a delectable confection interrupted those distractions for a moment, and promoted a predictable response.

“Yeah!”

He next received instructions to announce this eagerness to the nearby canvas boss, menagerie superintendent, side show captain, or prop hostler overseeing part of the many set-up processes all going on at the same time. Once this eager worker announced he wanted some cherry pie, that was the inside cue to give him an additional task.

Assessing the workload, available labor and balancing progress, the boss looked around and evaluated tasks that needed additional help; driving stakes, unloading and carrying ring curb, arranging prop trunks, moving seat planks into position, or any part of the many routines going on. The expectant rookie was assigned an additional task, followed with instructions to get it done every day and at night make sure he got it loaded onto the right wagon.

This creative way of assigning specific tasks was just one of the reasons the circus was able to accomplish so much each day. The rest of the troop then had a laugh at the expense of the bewildered recruit. They welcomed him to the crew, and the tented city went up a little faster from that day forward. 

The year was 1970. I spent fourteen glorious weeks, from June until September, on the Clark and Walters Circus. The Silverlake family operation had been purchased a few years prior from a showman in Oklahoma. Brownie was the Patriarch of all things circus. As was typical with circus families, all members of the Silverlake family had an act and a specialty task. They all pitched in with the operation of the show and worked together as a team.

I was eager to learn all I could in order to become a valuable showman. Franklin taught me how to splice three strand manila rope. I learned the proper way to install a twist lock plug on the end of an electric cord from Jimmie. And Melvin showed me how to solder a damaged microphone connection. I also learned how to sew a baseball stitch to repair a hole in the big top from Jack, the canvas boss, and even how to twist a whip-popper, the special part on the end of the whip that makes the noise, among other specialties.

 Brownie had time to share stories as he took care of the animals, so I typically followed him around as his helper. I learned about his wagon show days on the M L Clark Circus when he was a boy. I remember his story about when the Mighty Haag Circus was confronted with a steep and dangerous highway grade. This is when the elephants were literally walked over the mountains through to the other side, even though the teams and wagons kept to the roads.

Brownie tutored me with the same kindness he showed the animals in his care. As a newcomer to the show, my job was to play the drums during the show to accompany the calliope music of Bobby Green.  The rest of the time I was all over the circus lot involved in a litany of creative tasks. These included the set-up, maintenance, caretaking of animals, but my creative drive found expression with paint as I lettered Tickets, Jungle Beasts, Alive and decorative accents on the rolling stock. While we toured Appalachia, they tried the cherry pie trick on me, but because I was motivated and eager, the trick was irrelevant.

That summer whet my appetite to live a more interesting life. It filled me with an enthusiasm and a decision to continue my career in show business. Returning home at the end of the summer, I took welding at night. In January, after graduating from high school early, my fascinating career began. My creative drive, ambition and gift as a painter took precedence over all else and, I began to combine being an artist with travel.

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Homecoming Displays

As a child, I observed endless activities taking place at the nearby fraternity and sorority houses. Once a year they built elaborate displays to celebrate the annual Homecoming festivities that culminated with a football game. These displays depicted the university mascot, the tiger, doing a variety of things to their rival, and any number of other motifs thought to improve the morale of the school. Current events and popular songs also became themes. The “Purple People Eater” referred to the popular song of that time. Another clever idea was a huge cow straddling a simulated barb wire fence entitled “udder disaster.”

Not to be outdone, I imitated these efforts by building a homecoming display in our front yard. The first one occurred when I was six years old. I made a simple crayon depiction of a tiger, the Wittenberg mascot, on a large cardboard box. DaveHomecoming6

I learned to assist the college kids when their displays were being dismantled so I could drag building materials home for my use the following year. Gradually, I learned to sculpt chicken wire into the shapes of characters and stuff the holes with colored crepe paper. Each year my display became more sophisticated. Gradually my striving became mechanized, illuminated and by the time I was eleven, had an accompanying soundtrack that repeated a little ditty that Mom suggested and recorded the three of us singing: “Oh, hang ‘em up to dry, oh, hang ‘em up to dry, Ohio Wesleyan, Hang ‘em up to dry.”  This recording played all weekend alongside my display of a mechanized tiger with a washtub.Eat-The-Pie-On-Ear(s)-4-dupe

Being bitten with the drive to create, paint and a dose of insatiable curiosity, my energy focused on a variety of personal ambitions. I explored the neighborhood in search of insects for my science fair project, salvaged components for my annual homecoming display, tree house or fort and developed components for my summertime circus production.Aim-In-Fer-Victory-5

Like most little girls, Paula liked to play with dolls, toy ponies and aspired to compose stories. She once drew a comic strip with a pony as the main character. But she did not understand how to draw the hoof and ankle of a pony’s leg.  That did not stop her. She simply made the lines of each leg go down to a point, and “Pinfoot the Pony” was born. She made several adventure comics books during her young career as a cartoonist with this clever equine personality.

We discovered a litter of kittens born in the window-well of a nearby fraternity house. This started our relationship with “lucky” the cat, who became part of the family. Later, our childhood was blessed with her four offspring we named “Salt, Pepper, Sugar and Cinnamon.” After having the litter of kittens, Lucky’s personality turned anti-social and sour. So, she was sent to a local farmer who needed a mouser on his farm and we kept one of her kittens. Pepper became a source of joy for the whole family for many years. 

Mother loved singing and rose early to practice. After school, Mother was either teaching piano, voice lessons, or rehearsing for another upcoming opera. We had to be quiet while inside the house, so we learned to invent our own creative activities.

Dad planted a garden in the back yard every summer. One year I was delighted to find a herd of caterpillars devouring his parsley. I disclosed my discovery at dinner. My dad waited until I had gone to bed before thinning out my crop of caterpillars. The few that remained became plump. Then they found secluded places to attach themselves and transformed into a chrysalis. He knew about my interest in insects and found three one-gallon glass jars and placed a stick with a chrysalis in each one. Three jars, one for each of us to take to school.

In the spring of that year both John and Paula’s butterflies were born in their classrooms. Mine never did. I found out later that during the dead of winter my teacher had stupidly placed my jar on the steam radiator to keep it warm. You would think that a teacher would know that this organism was created to withstand the rigors of winter outside without any need for her help.

A year later, while in third-grade, the principal of the school came into our room, had a brief talk with our teacher and pointed directly at me and signaled for me to come with her out into the hall. Out in the hall, I saw two other students waiting with puzzled looks on their faces. We were taken to the gymnasium and given paints and brushes. We were then instructed to decorate the background scenery for an upcoming school play.

I became filled with creative delight as I immersed myself in this large project. At the end of the school day, I returned to my class room to find all my school mates crying. The television in the corner of the room revealed the reason. That day in Dallas, while I was painting, a sniper had shot and assassinated president Kennedy.

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Play Time

Paula received the usual gifts for a girl, a Barbie doll, fabric to make doll clothes, games and toy kitchen cooking stuff. John received a belt tooling kit, games of which he was especially fond and books about math and music, along with socks. To encourage my creative tendencies, I received a heavy package that contained an Erector set. Inside were pieces of structural metal, bolts, axels, gears and a motor that could be configured in countless ways. This aggregation of building components would facilitate many projects. I also received a seed planting kit, socks and many how to draw and paint books.

Crayons, paints and sketch books were abundant in our home as creativity was encouraged by our parents. Even though she had dolls and girl stuff, Paula liked boy stuff too. All in all, the foundation for happiness was alive and well in our home and the relentless creativity coming from our loving parents couldn’t help but be contagious.

During our frequent one-on-one, Mother taught me to pause and review something special from the recently viewed movie, event or story I had read. She then invited me to select and share with her my favorite part. Little did I know at the time that I was being groomed to become a seeker of goodness, pursuer of positivity, and appreciator of what the original artist or author intended.

As children, we had an ambition to play outside with toy trucks. Our father cleared out an ivy bed next to the garage so my sister and I had some dirt to play in. A short retaining wall separated the terraced back yards and made a perfect highway for our vehicles to travel upon. As our village in the dirt took form, made from accumulated findings, Paula assumed being in charge of paving the roads that threaded through our town. By heaping up dirt and smoothing out the top with a slurry coat of mud, Paula perfected the process of paving the roads that threaded through our miniature town. Paula earned the nick-name “mudder” at the same time! As we grew, the pattern of conjoined creativity expanded to include a variety of productions, the first of which was a backyard circus.