From the archives . . .

Journal note, dated Monday, January 4, 1977.

I am a "First of May."  In January, yet.  I am also a circus clown.  At long last.  In the morning, I will do my first ever professional performance.  I am very excited aobut this.  I have spent the last three years working toward this coming moment.  And now, it's going to happen.  For real.  It's not a fantasy anymore.

I work for George Hanneford Jr., in the Hanneford Family Circus.  For $100.00/week and a place to sleep.  The place to sleep turns out to be in my truck.

I think, that if I'm going to survive in this business, that I have a lot of "getting used to " to do.  Like sleeping in my truck, and bathing out of a bucket of water . . . somehow, I wasn't really ready for the reality of all of this.  I guess I expected too much.  But then, I don't know yet what it's going to be like.

I only just got here today . . .

Journal note, dated Tuesday, January 5, 1977.

Yeah.  Well, almost a clown.  Mrs. Hanneford told me this morning that she wanted me to work the concession stand today, and start clowning tomorrow.  I sort of get the impression that I may work the concession stand for a while, which isn't what I drove 1300 miles to do.  I could have sold hot dogs in New Haven . . .

There are three big horses, and five ponies and a whole bunch of dogs and a monkey and four baby elephants in the show.  They ride to and from work each day in a semi.  The dogs and the elephants sleep in the truck.  The ponies and horses sleep in a barn.  There's also a llama.  He rides in the truck and sleeps in the barn.

And there's two other clowns.  Alfredo Landon and Dougie Ashton.  They work in the show. 

I don't.

The monkey, by the way, is lucky.  He gets to sleep in the house.

Journal Note, dated Saturday, January 9, 1977.

Well, I'm finally a clown.  But still not a circus clown.  I'm a lobby clown. 

Every morning I get dressed and made-up and I go out into the lobby and be cute for the people who come in.  I walk up and down the side-walk, in and out of the parking lot, and wave at the cars that go by. 

Sometimes I sit on the curb and fish in the sewer grating. . . .

Yesterday, I made a sign that said

 

KISSES . . . $1.00

                       .75

                       .25

FREE!

 

I got kissed by two wrinkly old ladies and a five year old, slobbery girl.  Yecchh.  I did get to ride to and from work in Mrs. Hanneford's Cadillac, reason being, my truck is almost out of gas.

 

Tonight for supper, I ate six chocolate covered donuts, a can of Chef Boyardi Ravioli and  a quart of orange juice.  I ate the donuts first.  Then I opened the ravioli with a hammer and a screw driver, since I didn't bring a can-opener . . .

 

Nothing like cold ravioli, washed down with orange juice.

 

Things are looking up.  Only one more day until payday, and I still have over a dollar left!  Almost a dollar and a half! 

 

Dougie Ashton thinks I'm funny.  I guess that's something . . .

 

Journal Note, dated Sunday, January 10, 1977.

 

Another exciting day in the life of a first of May.  Still working in the lobby.  Apparently will be for a while. 

 

Until Dougie quits.

 

Or somebody dies.

 

Today while I was entertaining a group of people in the lobby, someone stole my props.  Lost my juggling balls, my lighter, and my last cigarette . . .

 

Lousy place, the lobby.

 

Ringling Blue is in Venice rehearsing.  Maybe I'll go down there and see the people I know.

 

After I get paid.

 

Tomorrow is payday!  Wheee . . .

 

So ended my first week in the circus.  The next day, after I got paid, I quit.  And I did go visit Ringling Blue.  And, ok, so this really should have been an earlier entry, but I forgot I had it.  I found it cleaning out a file drawer a week or so ago . . . I think the days correspond to the dates, but I didn't bother to check.

 

You can, if you're of a mind to . . .

           

Williams & Cole Circus

One of the jobs I did with Harvey Copeland involved a drive to Groveland, FL, where Bill Ballantine and Roberta lived in a little house by a lake.  Bill's daughter, Bridget, had contracted to do her single trapeze act on Circus Vargas and Bill asked Harvey to build a rigging box that would contain her chandelier (under which the trapeze was suspended) and double as a bed for her daughter Zita when the box was loaded into her van.  So off we went to Groveland. 

Seems like it took two trips, a bunch of plywood, and some blue paint.  On that trip was the first time I heard of the Williams & Cole Circus.  Something new, started by Oklahoma City attorney Jerry D. Sokolosky and former Ringling comptroller, Billy Williams.  It was supposed to start onApril 30, 1977, and tour the mid-west for 17 weeks.  Bridget had been contacted by them, but couldn't go, since she was going to Vargas.  But I could!  And I did. 

I was thrilled!  I was going places!  I was gonna be in the circus again!  At the end of March, I got this letter . . .

In the time I had left before I left for Oklahoma, I painted everything I owned, including my truck (see the newspaper article below).  I made new wardrobe, I spiffed up everything I owned.  I even bought a rabbit to produce out of the square/circle illusion Harvey built for me as a going away present.  (I named the rabbit "Oliver," after Bill Ballantine .  It was his middle name.  Bill's middle name, not the rabbit's.  The rabbit didn't have a middle name.)  I bought magnetic signs to put on my van, and Harvey painted the Williams & Cole logo on them.

And he knew that I had walked stilts at Clown College, but I didn't have any.  So he made me a pair of five foot stilts.  But not just regular stilts-- no, not Harvey.  He told me about old time clowns that walked stilts dressed in kilts, with the stilts carved into knobby knees and bony ankles.  And he made me a pair like that-- he carved them out of 4x4 cyprus fence posts, with a chain saw!  Then he built me a tripod stilt-ladder that would work anywhere, even in the middle of a field, which is where I spent a lot of my career . . .

The drag came from my clown college classmate and friend, Richard Fick-- don't know why he didnt need it anymore, but I was grateful for the gift.  To the right is Bruce the Clown on stilts.>

<To the left is Bruce the Clown Magician.  I had magic, I had stilts, I had Hugo, the Performing Rock.  I could juggle, and ride a unicycle (sort of, unless I had to turn a corner), and I had a seventeen week agreement for the princely sum of $150.00 per week.  I was ready!  So, off I went to Oklahoma City.  When I got there, I found chaos, but I've always liked chaos, so I felt right at home.  In the next two and a half weeks, I built and painted two sets of 36 foot diameter ring-curb and two knock down concession stands.  Also did any number of pre-opening publicity gigs, including one at the Rattlesnake Festival in Enid.  (I think it was Enid- it may have been somewhere else.  I remember the rattlesnakes more than the location . . .) Ever since, I've felt that chicken tastes like rattlesnake . . .

Here's two newspaper photos from the time . . .

P.S.  Just discovered that if you click on any of the photos, you get enlarged versions, and you can read the fine print . . .

Sarasota Art . . .

Not a person, but a concept . . . Harvey was a sign-writer.  Most of being his apprentice was going on jobs with him and proof reading whatever he was painting.  Sometimes, if a word had a repeating letter, or combination of letters, it was easy to just go on to the end of the word, and leave out the repeat.  And, having spent my formative years in Catholic school, I had me some kind of vocabulary and I could spell up a storm.

And he could paint!  It was amazing.  Harvey once painted a sink on the side of a clown prop that looked so real that a drunk guy walked up and tried to pee in it . . . He could paint letters in styles that only after computers and MicroSoft WORD did I realize were "fonts."  He worked in fiberglass, plywood, sheetmetal, glass, foam rubber, whatever was at hand.  He could make anything out of anything . . .

This is the Old Heidelburg Castle, a German restaurant in Sarasota . . .

It already looked like this the first time I saw it.  Harvey and a guy named Dave Radtke, I think, had built the turrets out of sheet-metal, and painted the towers and windows.  As the bricks got further from the ground, they also got thinner, adding to the illusion of height when you looked up at the turrets.  When I worked there with Harvey, we were re-painting the people on the front wall.  It was where I learned about scaffolding, and German food . . .

I remember Harvey painted an airplane, the Dog Track building,  any number of signs and vehicles.  He worked for a number of years in the Clown College Prop Shop with George Shellenberger, Wilson Dahne and Ivan Saxby, and at Hagenbeck/Walllace as shop foreman.  There may have been stuff he didn't do in his life, but it was never because he believed he couldn't . . . if Harvey didn't do it, it was only because he didn't want to.

I heard one story wherein a friend of his was opening a welding shop, and a group got together and bought him an anvil- it took four guys to carry it in, and they presented him with a hammer to strike the first blow.  When he did, the anvil shattered, because Harvey had made a mold, cast a plaster anvil, and then painted it to look like the real thing.

I remember another time, working in some capacity for RBB&B at WQ, entertaining a film crew that had no clue what they wanted.  Frosty Little was there, and Eddie DelMoral, and Harvey and me.  Frosty was getting more and more frustrated because the crew had no idea what to film, and he was improvising a script for them as the day wore on.  And on, and on . . .

Harvey and Eddie went out and got lunch, and came back 45 minutes later with Eddie carrying about 12 styrofoam boxes, stacked atop one another, staggering under the load.  Frosty saw him, just as he reached the ring curb, and tripped.  Frosty about lost it, between being hungry and frustrated, and let out a few choice clown expletives before he realized that all 12 boxes were just floating to the ground, since they were empty.  About then, Harvey came around the corner carrying the real lunch, laughing quietly to himself.

"You can do it," he'd say to discouraged clowns, so often that Chuck Sidlow got years of mileage from imitating Harvey's encouraging speech.  Harvey was the guy who taught me that just because you'd never done something didn't mean you couldn't charge top dollar for doing it.  In fact, he'd say, sometimes, you have to charge more if you've never done it before, because you have to allow time for making mistakes and learning from them.

The last time I saw Harvey was at the Sarasota Circus Parade staging ground the only year I was in it.  Tony Dow was the guest grand marshall.  Harvey had a roll of white shelf paper and a can of red paint, and he was painting names on banners for the dignataries' convertibles , even as the cars were lining up and entering the parade. 

He taught me how to paint, how to maintain a brush, how to use a brush to pick up paint that you spilled.  He taught me how to use tools for what they were for, and how to have confidence in my ability.  The skills I learned working with him fed me during the winter months when no one wanted clowns, and enabled me to survive, even to this day, in lean times.  He was my mentor, and he was my friend. 

Circus World!

But all was not lost!

Bill Ballantine arranged an audition for me at Circus World!  Gale LaJoye, whom I'd seen perform on my first unsuccessful trip to clown college was now the Boss Clown, and for some inexplicable reason (someone either didn't show up, or quit right away . . .), there was an opening for a clown!  Why, that could be me . . .

So I packed all my stuff up into my van and drove off to Haynes City, corner of I-4 and SR27. 

Above is an aerial photo of Circus World, vintage unknown.  Below is Harvey Copeland.  It's a recent picture that I got from the Clown College Face book page.  I think Chuck Sidlow posted it there.  Harvey would never have posed with anything but a PBR, back in the day, at which time, he was, by his own admission, "a half a century old!"  Which would make him upwards of 86 or so now.  The last thing he said to me as I was leaving his driveway was "good luck!  If it doesn't work out, come back, and you can be my apprentice . . ."

"Not bloody likely," I thought to myself as I drove away to my glorious future, but I thanked him profusely anyway.  He'd been awesome from the first day I met him, and, little did I know, was about to become even moreso . . .

I got to Circus World-- found Gale, and got a tour of the park.  My audition was to perform "Hugo, the Performing Rock" in the afternoon show.  By night fall, I was back on the road, once again going backward, not forward, back to Sarasota, where the next morning, I started as Harvey's apprentice.

This clown career was sure slow in getting started . . .

Michu's Wedding!!!

So- my memory has been refreshed!  The Spec the year my classmates joined the Blue Show was the second year of the Michu's Wedding tour.  According to Bill Ballantine in Clown Alley, 16 class of 1976 graduates joined the Blue Show.  And only 6 clowns from the Class of 75 were rehired for a second year . . . In all, 28 of my class mates went to work for RBB&B (6 to the Red Unit and 6 to Circus World).  And to this day, I'm disappointed that I wasn't one of them . . .

But thanks to Harvey and Bill, I was back!  I remember buying a lot of stuff at the hardware store, almost daily trips, and many nights hanging out at the motel, where an amazing number of clowns sought refuge from the train . . . but all too soon, it was over again.  The show opened in Venice, and I was about useless to Harvey and Bill, forever sneaking off to watch from wings, covered in sawdust and paint, but no spangles.

I remember watching Ned Way (how much does a ned weigh?) borrow handcuffs from an off duty cop doing security and cuff himself to a railing at the end of the seats, just as the spec began.  Then just as his place in the grand parade was marching by empty, he freed himself, left the cuffs dangling and jumped into place.  Years later, when I moved to Deltona, I found out that Ned lived here, but he was involved in some sort of Christian ministry, and I neglected to seek him out because I didn't want to be involved in anything Christian.  Go figure.  By the time I'd been born again, Ned had left the area, so that night in Venice, handcuffed to the railing, was probably the last time I ever saw him . . .

The show left Venice, but I stayed.  Harvey and I went back one more day to clean up.  And truthfully, I don't think I've ever seen a space emptier than the circus arena was when we arrived the next day.  Looked something like this . . .

Greg DeSanto, Director of the Clown Hall of Fame, Baraboo, WI (his photo, shamelessly lifted form Clown College Facebook page)

Except there was no clown.  There was nothing.  It was empty and forlorn, with nothing but the quickly fading ghosts of glitz and glamor, of sawdust and spangles, to remind a person of the spectacle that had so recently swelled the rafters with music and applause. 

Once again, the Circus shut off, like a tightly twisted tap, without even a drip to remind one of its former glory . . .

Prop Shop . . .

The World English Dictionary defines "serendipity" as "the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident "  It states further that the word was "coined by Horace Walpole, in 1754, from the Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip, in which the heroes possess this gift." And all this time I thought it was made up by Jiminy Crickett . . .

But, English trivia aside, running into Richard Fick at Winn-Dixie that night was about as "serendipitous" as it gets.  I had just quit my job at the Hall of Fame (after only a week), and had no idea of where I was going to go, or what I was going to do next.  I think I gave him a ride back to the train, but I could be making that up.  I do remember the next morning, I went to the arena with Richard, and just walked in with all the other 1st year clowns, acting  like I belonged there just as much as they did . . .

Talk about luck!  I walk into the prop shop, and there's Harvey Copeland and Bill Ballantine all in a tizzy about how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it in.  They need stuff from the local hardware store, but they need to be at the arena and "hey! Bruce could go to the store . . ."

So they give me a list, and a blank purchase order, and off I go.  I found everything on the list, then copied the list onto the purchase order, completed the transaction and went back to the arena.  Later on I got complimented by the comptroller for being the only one from the clown department whose receipts actually matched what was requested on the purchase order . . . never told him that it was really the other way around.

By the end of the day, I had a job, and a motel room, courtesy of Bill Ballantine and RBB&BCSI. (Now there's an idea for a TV show . . .)  Oddly enough, I have no recollection at all of what was in the show, and I saw all or part of it probably more often than any other edition.  What I do remember is the frenzy of activity from early morning to late at night.  I believe it was the second year of whatever edition it might have been, and more than half of the clowns were from my recently graduated class.  What it felt like, more than anything else, was coming home.

I went to sleep happy that night . . .

Illustration . . .

What we did when the 5-Man Bike broke . . . (8/23/83)

Random Thoughts . . .

Unicycling is a difficult skill to master.  But once you have it, it’s a lot like riding a regular bike (one with two wheels), in that it’s hard to forget how.  Forget that you could flat out kill yourself learning.  I got a unicycle for my 28^th birthday (while I was in nursing school)—I still have it.  My brother-in-law restored it for my 64^th birthday.  And I can still ride it, almost as well as I ever could, which was never really all that great to begin with.   In the twenty years I spent in the circus industry, there was only once that I used it in a show . . .

On Circus Vargas, in 1983, midway through the first half of the show, they always did a “no-smoking” announcement.  Cliff Vargas, the owner/producer, paid a guy to build a bicycle built for five (no lie!).  One guy would run down the track right after the announcement with his head on fire, and five of us would chase him, in yellow rain coats and plastic fireman hats on the five man bike.  It was pretty funny, and it took long enough, but the bike was a piece of crap.  It was out of the show broken as often as it was in.

One day, when the bike was broken, Scott Parker comes up with an extraordinary idea—so, before the first show, we construct an oversize fire hydrant out of foam-rubber, about a fifteen foot long hose from dryer tubing, and a foam rubber nozzle with a bulb syringe inside that spits out water.  Then we chase the on-fire guy, still in yellow rain coats with fireman helmets, only now on unicycles—Scott in front with the nozzle, futilely squirting water at the guy, me in the middle holding onto the hose for dear life, and Greg McElwayne in the rear, carrying the hydrant on a six foot tall giraffe unicycle . . . and suddenly, pretty funny becomes a wave of uproarious laughter that follows us all the way around the tent.  We’d have willingly never done it any other way again.

But Cliff had paid a bunch of money for the five-man bike, and he wanted to see it in his show.  And it was HIS show . . .  Yet, somehow, for the rest of the season, whenever we played on pavement, as opposed to pasture, the five man bike seemed to be in need of repair . . .

From an audience point of view, clowns are supposed to be funny.  That means that when the clowns are finished, in a best case scenario, the audience should be rolling on the floor laughing their butts off.   And, after the Unicycle Chase, they were.  Worst case, they should at the very least be amused.  And after the five man bike, they were.  Sometimes, if they’re not actively seeking your head on a platter, then you’ve done the best you can do.  But from a clown point of view, “rotfltbo” is insanely better than “amused.”

From a producer’s point of view, while clowns are supposed to be funny, lots of times there are other considerations.  For instance, how much did he pay for the bike?  Or did they take long enough?  Not too long, and not too short.  Nothing worse than having the clowns finish before the next act is ready and having to call them back to fill the extra time . . .

The show world is full of mediocre unicyclists or jugglers who put clown make-up on and remain mediocre unicyclists or jugglers but are now mediocre clowns as well.  There are phenomenal jugglers who aren’t funny at all.  They don’t have to be.  There are phenomenal jugglers who are phenomenally funny as well, because they have learned, not only to juggle well, but to use their juggling skill in a way that evokes gut-wrenching laughter from a crowd.  The Flying Karamazov Brothers come to mind . . .

Scott Parker was a phenomenal unicyclist (at least to me—I don’t know what he would say about his skills). He may still be.   He juggled three clubs on it; he even jumped rope on it.  He rode forward, backward, and could rock back and forth in one place.  But way beyond that, he was flat out FUNNY!  I never watched him that I didn’t laugh, and I watched him a lot.

I think of the unicycle as a tool.  Your skill set is your tool box.  The more tools you have available and can skillfully use, the better prepared you are to do the job.  Nineteen of the twenty years I was in the circus, the unicycle stayed in the truck.  But the one year when I could use it, it was available.

Bottom line—it helped, but on its own, it wouldn’t ever have earned me a dime.

The Circus Hall of Fame . . .

I had just gotten home from an eight hour shift with Phil Planetta.  He was an old Italian guy who'd had a stroke.  I liked taking care of him because his wife was such a good cook  Every night, she'd make some outrageous Italian dinner, and after I'd fed him, she prepared me a plate for my dinner break.  But it would have been short lived, since he was running out of insurance.  Even then it was an issue . . .

But like I said, I had just come home, and my brother said, "you had a phone call today from Florida.  Some guy named Hanneford?"  And, truth be told, at the time, I had no idea who it was.  But I called him back.

And I left a couple of days later to go back to Florida to work for George Hanneford Junior at the Hanneford Family Circus at the Circus Hall of Fame on Highway 41 in Sarasota.  The pay was $100 per week and a place to sleep . . .

The week turned out to be seven days.  (The Hannefords worked! Twenty years later I worked for them again, at the Swap Shop in Ft. Lauderdale.  Their week was still seven days!)   The place to sleep turned out to be in my van in their yard in Nokomis.  George had gotten my name and number from Harvey Copeland, Clown College Prop Teacher and Certified Artistic Genius.

This is George Hanneford Jr . . .

And Victoria, on his left (Mrs Hanneford) and Kay Francis (his sister), on his right.  This is a publicity photo for their perch act, "The Georgians." (See?  I knew I needed publicity photos . . .)  As I understand it, this was a sensational act, booked on RBB&B for four years in the sixties. But this act had already retired by the time I came along, so I never got to see it.   Pat Cashin has a video posted here that shows part of this act, starting about 1:38 . . .

And you can read more about the Hannefords here , and here.

 

And this is the Circus Hall of Fame . . .

It was about 22 miles from the Hanneford Family home in Nokomis, FL.  Everyday, they got up, loaded up elephants, horses, ponies, Dianne, Cathy and George III and drove to work, unloaded, did two or three shows, loaded back up and drove home to Nokomis.  Most of the show was the Hannefords.  They did trampoline, the riding act, the liberty ponies (white ponies, each named for a city in Michigan) and the elephants.  Dianne did a gorgeous single trapeze act, ending with a barefoot, no gimmick, swinging toe-hang. 

The clowns were Alfredo Landon and the one and only Dougie Ashton.  And me.  Alfredo was the first clown I ever saw stick a flower in a soda straw, hand it to a lady in the audience, then leave her holding the straw as he spotted another lady nearby . . .  And Dougie Ashton is, to this day, one of the funniest clowns I've ever seen.  They both worked in the show. 

But not me.  I worked in the lobby.  This was also in the lobby . . .

This is the other side . . .

If you look closely, you can see it in the window in the picture above.  It generally got more attention than I did . . .

I also worked out on the street corner. Where I fished in the sewer grate.  Business was terrible.  My job was to flag down cars and get them to come into the parking lot and thence, the show.  I was one of the first ever human signs . . .

Here   is an article about the opening and closing of the Circus Hall of Fame, last performance May 27, 1980.  It lasted three years after I was there.  I only lasted there a week.  I think George was relieved when I told him I was leaving.  I think what happened was that right after he hired me on the phone, during the week it took me to get there, Dougie showed up looking for a gig, and George hired him.  Can't say I blame him . . .

This is Dougie Ashton . . .

When I got to Sarasota, Dougie was there, and George didn't need me anymore.  I'm not sure he ever did.  So, I worked that one week, got my $100 and left.  I went toVenice to shop, and ran into Clown College class mate Richard Fick in the Winn-Dixie.  The Blue show was in rehearsal . . .

And my life took a turn for the better . . .

Back in the attic again . . .

So there I was, back in Connecticut, living in my brother's attic, just as if I'd never left.  Definitely not the place I wanted to be . . .  I went to work for a home health agency in New Haven, since I still had my RN license, and worked day to day wherever I was assigned, but my heart was soo00OO! not into it.  I had been to  Brigadoon!  I'd tasted my dream!  How could I go back to being a townie?

I was terrified that I was going to wake up one day in my forties and discover that the best I'd done was to live an ordinary life, which was just completely unacceptable, considering the extraordinary experience I'd just lived through, courtesy of The Greatest Show On Earth!  I was supposed to be a CLOWN!  I HAD to be a clown.
But how? 

Finding work in the circus wasn't one of the things they taught us in Clown College.  In fact, I'd heard that one of the reasons we-who-did-not-get-contracts also did not get diplomas was so that we couldn't misrepresent ourselves as having ever been TGSOE employees or affiliates.  Given the stress in our "certificates of appreciation" on our non-contracted status, the veracity of this assumption seemed  reasonable at the time . . .

But I knew that professionals in any area of show business had publicity materials.  I'd seen enough movies to have some sort of rudimentary understanding of how things worked . . . or so I thought.  So I hired a professonal photographer . . . well, ok, so my mom had a friend from work who took pictures . . .

This was the best one . . .

I just couldn't understand it.  I was a product of Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown College!  I was a trained professional, taught by the best in the business!  Why didn't all that training, all that knowledge, just burst through the lens and scream "you NEED THIS GUY on YOUR show!!?" 

How could I look so horribly amateruish?

And this was way, way before backyard photographers had digital cameras that let you look at and post on line what you'd just photographed, even before you went back in the house.  So it was a couple of weeks before I even got to see the results.  Shoot, this was even before there was "online . . ."

His second effort was his attempt at "art." He tried a double exposure . . .

Apparently, I had only one facial expression at the time.  Note the vague sillouette of Bruce the Clown without make-up, kind of from the nose down, that Bruce the Clown with make-up is super-imposed over . . .

Mom's photographer was thrilled with his work.  I was appalled. 

There was a whole envelope of similar exposures and poses.  He even included the negatives, in case I wanted to have 8x10's made of any of his work

Mostly, what I could see from his work was that his work wasn't going to get me any work of my own.  These were the two best out of a 36 exposure roll of 35mm film, and the only two I still have.  But it wasn't his fault.  He could only take pictures of what was in front of him . . .

This might have been my first experience in realizing that lots of times, a person's perception of reality is way different than reality itself.  I mean, I knew-- I ABSOLUTELY KNEW that Bruce the Clown looked way better than what I saw in these photos . . . and yet, every time I ever looked at them, even today, I was disappointed . . .

I never made any 8x10s.  I never sent a single copy of any of these to anyone.  I never even showed them to anyone (until I posted them here . . .)

Fortunately, I didn't have to . . .

Post Graduation Blue Show Blues . . .

Early in the morning on November 21, 1976, Dean Ballantine began the shuffling of students back and forth to the arena, students that the Misters Feld wanted to talk to about continuing on as first year clowns on the Greatest Show on Earth.  I wasn't one of them.  Bill went out of his way to be gentle, but there was no softening of that blow.  I had not been so arrogant as to have expected to be contracted, but neither had I given up hope. 

When he told me that I had not been selected, it was the biggest disappointment of my life.  It still ranks among the top disappointments of all time for me.  The previous eight weeks had been the most intense, most enjoyable, most action-packed and adventurous time I had ever spent, and BAM! Just like that it was over.  Like a faucet that turns off so tight that there isn't even a drip.  It's just done.  There isn't any more.  The End.  And you don't know if it'll ever turn on again . . .

This is Detroit.  He was Wilson Dahne's dog.  He looks like I felt that morning.  Detroit was at Clown College everyday.  Mostly, he slept.  When he woke up, he'd look for Willy.  Until he saw him, it was like he wasn't sure he was ever gonna again . . .   That's what it felt like that morning.  I didn't know then that I'd be back at clown college a year later.  I didn't know that I'd spend the next twenty years as a clown in the American circus.  I didn't know if there'd ever be circus again in my life . . .

There were those few who didn't get called who nevertheless found their way over to the arena and waited in futility for the Felds to finish and come down the stairs and explain why they hadn't been selected; there always were.  But they never got their answers.  What could the Felds have said?  "We didn't pick you because we picked the others . . .?"  They had made their decision, and it was theirs to make.  Clown College was pretty much free to the students.  To have any sense of entitlement for having completed it seemed way over the top.

The people who got contracts got diplomas.  The people who didn't get contracts got certificates of appreciation, detailing how much we should appreciate the opportunity we'd just had . . . I wish I still had mine.  It would have fit right well just about here . . .

But its long gone. And I did appreciate, more than I've ever been able to say, what an awesome opportunity Clown College was.  I still do.  But on November 21, there was nothing left to do but leave.

So I left.  I gave a ride to some others to Orlando, then went to Jacksonville where I'd left a bunch of furniture in a storage unit, loaded up my van and drove to Connecticut.  Strangely, when I got there, the Circus was in town.  So I gathered up my god-daughter and went to the New Haven Coliseum where the Blue Show was playing.  During a walkaround, Prince Paul Albert came up into the seats where I was sitting, and I told him I had just finished Clown College.

"So when are you joining the show?" he asked me . . .

Prince Paul Albert, a long, long time ago . . .

It was all I could do to keep from crying when I told him, "I'm not . . ."

Class of 1976, Part 4, Chapter 7 . . .

Bill Ballantine talks about the Class of 1976 in Part 4,Chapter 7 of Clown Alley, published in 1982 by Little, Brown.  The most amazing person on the faculty was, of  course, Lou Jacobs.  Even then, he was being called "master" clown.  Other Ringling clowns who came to teach were Frosty Little, Peggy Williams, Billy Baker, Barry Lubin, James Tinsman, James Briscoe, George Koury, Steve LaPorte and Anthony Cicchino. 

Other staff included Bob Momeyer, Assistant Dean and teacher of magic; Gerald Quimby, Anatomy of Comedy; Chris Barnes, Voice, Music; Victor Gaona, Acrobatics; Hugo Zuniga, Juggling; Manuel Navarro, Unicycling; Stephen J. Margill and Cyrus P. Koski III, Equilibrium; Laurie Logan and Dee Garrett, Clown Dance Movement; Antoinette Attell (Toad), Mime; Anne DeVelder and Sarah Nash Gates, Costume Making; Roberta Ballantine, Health and Nutrition; Phyllis Rogers, Clowning's Roots; and Harvey P. (No relation to Steven D., far as I know) Copeland and Billy Dahne, Clown Props.  And of course, the Dean, the one and only Bill Ballantine . . .

Graduation was on November 20, 1976.  Everybody got two tickets, each ticket admitting two guests.  Looked like this . . .

There were 72 various and sundry presentations in the graduation program.  Almost every student was given the chance to showcase his/her abilities up close and personal for TGSOE Producers, Irvin and Kenneth Feld, but I do remember Kevin Hardy, from Carlisle, Massachusetts lamenting during the final week, "I'm not in ANYTHING!"

 Every standard, and some not so standard, piece of clown business was demonstrated, some more than once.  Of course, at the time, it was all new to me. 

I was in four group displays; juggling, stilt walking, something called "Animals Chorale" that I don't remember at all, and a dance number that we performed with our backs to the audience, wearing tin soldier masks on the backs of our heads (cuter than funny, but hey- opportunity).

I was in one of the two boxing gags, but I don't remember if it was the first or the second. The only thing I remember about it is Bob Boasi looking at me blankly half way through the gag and whispering "what do I do next?"  When all the dust settled, he was one of the students awarded a contract with The Greatest Show On Earth. 

Robert Boasi

I was also allowed to perform two numbers of my own.  "BAD BABY" was me standing in a high chair in baby garb with my legs hidden by a black cloth, and foam baby legs sticking out from under the tray.  John Coan, a little person from Brooklyn Center, Minnesota played my mom.  It seemed like it went well . . . I started out crying, and he gave me a giant pacifier, which I threw at him.  Then he gave me a giant bottle that I squirted him with.  Then he gave me a bowl full of basic, standard, whipped shaving soap and I pelted him with spoonfull after spoonfull until he took away my spoon.  Then when he came up to yell at me, I squashed the bowl on his head and the soap shot up into the air through the little hole cut in the bottom of the bowl.  Then I reached down, picked up the high chair and ran off with him chasing me. 
(John didn't get offered a contract.)

Bill wrote about my other gag in Clown Alley.

"We had a graduation act in which a clown performed as a wild-rock trainer; the big papier-mache rock, in obedience to the trainer's commands, had to be moved for each trick by an assistant straining behind the master's back.  For the blowoff, the trainer opened a trap door in the "rock"  and put in his head (ala Wolfgang Holzmair).  The trainer was Bruce Warner, a male nurse who'd been employed in psychiatric wards of vererans' hospitals" (Ballantine, 369). 

That was me, alright.  But he left out the best laugh . . .  Right before the blow-off, I stepped back, looked at Hugo (I named the rock . . .), threw my hands up in disgust and reached for a bag of sawdust I'd hidden behind the prop.  Then I threw sawdust around, behind and under Hugo, as if he'd just . . . well, you get the picture.

All things considered, I got a great opportunity to demonstrate what I'd learned.  As did all 56 of my classmates, except maybe Kevin Hardy.  Twenty-eight students were offered contracts with TGSOE on the morning after the gala graduation performance.

The above is the official photo of the Class of 1976, I think.  Just students, no faculty . . . I didn't know I had this picture until relatively recently.  After my brother died, my niece (of whom I am very proud-- has a PhD and teaches at Harvard) brought me a bunch of stuff that looked like it would be mine from cleaning out his house at Chernobyl, and this photo was stuck inside a program from the Moscow Circus . . .

Below is another shot, this time with faculty . . .

Hugo was the biggest laugh I got that night.  But he wasn't big enough.  I wasn't one of the twenty-eight.  Years later, after we were done with the circus, I took Hugo back to a rock sanctuary in East Haven CT, where he could live out eternity in peace.  Was it cruel to rip him from his surroundings when he was just a pebble and subject him to twenty years of the uncertainties of circus life?  I don't know.  But he never complained  . . .

This is a photo of our final goodbye . . .  He was so old that I had to prop his mouth open with a stick so he would be able to breath . . . 

They tell me at the sanctuary that he never moved again . .

So it goes. 

Class 0f 1976 #3 . . .

I was cleaning out my garage yesterday, and I found this in a box I hadn't opened in years.  I threw most of the other stuff in it away . . . this is the key to my room at Villa Paradiso, one of the courts at Venice Villas, the motel that housed Clown College students for many years.  It's one of the very few things I have left from Clown College.  And I'm not even sure that I kept it in 1976, since I was back at the Villas in 1977 as bus driver, but in 77, I think my room was in the motel building, not in one of the Villas.   (Maybe my CC room-mate, David Carlyon could shed some light . . .   one could always ask)

The back of the key fob says"we recommend SMITTY'S Cocktail Lounge and Beef-Eaters Room-- Charcoal Broiled Steaks, Prime Ribs. US 41, at the lights . . ."  I guess there were so few traffic lights in Venice in 1976 that the reference was plain.  I don't remember Smitty's.  I think I wasn't drinking then, or eating a lot of red meat, so that I could hold my head up high in the presence of Mrs. Ballantine, who taught about the "Care and Feeding of Clowns."  Didn't have a lot of money, either . . .

This is David Carlyon, my Clown College room mate.  This is a link to his website. As you can see, if you click the link, he's gone on to great heights in theatre, publishing and academia . . . but he's really still a clown at heart.

Dave is the one in the polka-dotted hat.  The young lady is Ms Ruthie Chaddock, quite a clown in her own right, and also a CC grad, slightly earlier than Dave and me.  (This photo is from the 40th CC reunion at the Clown Hall of Fame in Baraboo, Wisconsin in 2008.)

 I didn't go.  I had to work.

So it goes . . .

Class of 1976 ( cont'd) . . .

I think I must have gotten a letter, or a packet, or something from RBB&BCC detailing reporting instructions and directions etc, but I don't have any of it left . . . I know from reading Clown Alley, Bill Ballantine's "salty and affectionate memoir" of his tenure at Clown College, that the class of 1976 convened on September 27, 1976, and I remember that I was overjoyed to confront Dick Brown again, this time with paperwork that demonstrated that I belonged.

Sometime near the beginning of the eight week course, I think, everyone got one of these . . .

I've seen this drawing reproduced in numerous places over the years, but I still have mine.  "Welcome to Clown College 1976."  Personally autographed by Mr. Bill Ballantine.  I never met Felix Adler, but I would have liked to.  Everything I've read or heard about him indicates that he was one of the all time greats.  It would have been something to see him work . . .

This is the list of students in the Class of 1976 . . .

The list was included in the graduation program.  This was the cover, again, Bill Ballantine artwork . . .

It was a most amazing 8 weeks.  Went by way too fast.  A blur of unicycles, stilts, juggling, slaps & falls, foam rubber, plywood, needles and thread, shopping for material, make-up, the greatest time of anticipation in my life, and finally, the greatest disappointment . . .  

Class of 1976 . . .

It must have been in July, or August 1976.  I think it was a Monday.  I was doing what I hated the most, and would never have chosen to do voluntarily, except I was in charge, and everyone else refused to do it.  Yes, it was my job to make out daily assignments, but everytime I tried to change things up, nothing worked right.  As long as I assigned everyone to what they wanted to do, which was what they always did, things went incredibly smoothly.  They'd all been doing what they always did long before I got there, and doing it quite efficiently, thank you, and they didn't need me coming in with my Yankee education thinking I knew better than they did what they should do . . .

Which meant that no one else on the nursing staff was going to sit in the room while our assigned psychiatrist interviewed new patients who had been admitted over the weekend.  So it was me, and the doctor, and people in varying degrees of stress, dysfunction, psychosis, mania and/or agitation.  Often times, the longer the initial interview took, the greater the degree of agitation became.  The word we used for it was "escalation."  Our assigned psychiatrist was a master at promoting escalation.

His favorite question, part of his every intake interview, was "do you have insurance?"

If the answer was yes, the hapless individual was shortly listed on all hospital records as a "private" patient, and billed separately for any and all provided services on every available occcasion . . .

Then the phone rang.  I hated it when the phone rang.  It meant that something was going wrong on the other side of the door that no one out there could deal with, and it meant that while I was on the phone, I couldn't give my full attention to what was going on in the room, which was usually an already agitated individual engaged in "escalating" behavior, provoked by our insurance seeking psychiatrist.

So, reluctantly, I answered the phone.  "Is this Bruce Warner?"

Yes, it is.

This is Bill Ballantine . . .

"This is Bill Ballantine . . ."   

Bill Ballantine.  Author, artist, former clown, current Dean of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College.  Calling me!  CALLING ME!  Could it be . . . ? 

Within days after Dick Brown had me escorted out, I had filled out and mailed a new application to RBB&B CC.  No one had contacted me when I applied in 1975. 

Now, almost a year later, BILL BALLANTINE was on the other end of the phone!

BILL BALLANTINE, Dean of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College was the other party in a conversation with ME!  This could only mean one thing . . .

I'm going to Clown College!

I dropped the phone.

I didn't pick it up.  I got down on the floor, crawled under the desk where the phone had landed and continued the conversation from there.  Yes.  Yes!  YES!  I not only am still interested, I can be there this afternoon!!! 

Which wasn't necessary, as class didn't start until September.  I got all the information, and thanked him, and hung up.  Then I crawled out from under the desk, said good bye to the psychiatrist and the now thorougly agitated, escalated patient, and left the room.  I went next door to the office, saw my supervisor sitting there and gave two weeks notice . . .

Her immediate concern was that I wouldn't try to use up all my accumulated sick and vacation time over the next two weeks.  The day before I left, the other staff threw me a going away party . . .

There was fried chicken, and country ham, and mashed potatoes and gravy, and sweet potato pie and corn bread and three of four different kinds of greens and a whole banquet of incredible food, all laid out on six or seven adjustable tables in one of the empty patient rooms.  There was enough to feed all the staff, and probably 3/4 of the patients as well.  I asked Nurse Wright, my favorite other employee, the one whose guidance had proven invaluable during my year in Jacksonville, why there was so much --

"Well," she replied, "we're not like you.  When we have a party, we don't like to have to stop on the way home to get something to eat . . ."

It was then that I noticed the lone bedside stand in the corner by the patient restroom with a small bag of Ruffles and a plastic container of Lipton Onion Soup Dip.  Next to it on a three by five index card, perfectly hand lettered, were the words "White People Food!"

I don't think I ever laughed that hard before . . .

And now for something completely different . . .

" . . . the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he is risen, as He said."

He is risen.

Indeed.

Happy Easter!

Associate Degree Nursing . . .

In the fall of 1973, I started in the Associate Degree Nursing program at University of Bridgeport's Junior College of Connecticut. 

Did I want to be a nurse? 

Didn't really enter the consideration.  I didn't want to work.  I was elligible for the GI Bill.  I could go to school . . .

I had been a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy . . .

I was a Nursing Assistant in a Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the West Haven VA Hospital . . .

Nursing should be a breeze.  And it was.  In the entire program, the only thing I had to learn that I hadn't learned before was the one semester of OB/GYN.  There were over 100 people in my ADN program, and only 6 of us were guys, and we were all ex-military medic types.  I graduated cum laude in 1975. 

And I applied to Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Clown College.  I never heard from them.  But, knowing that no news is good news, I decided to go anyway.  I went to Florida and showed up at the RBB&B winter quarters on the day Clown College started.  I met Dick Brown, director of security.  It took him a while to figure out that I didn't belong there, and while he was figuring, I watched from the wings as Gale LaJoie entertained the new class.   This is Gale . . .

He was in a ring full of props.  I remember a gorilla head and a step ladder and a wine bottle.  I don't remember what he did with them, but I do remember he made me laugh.

But all too soon, Dick Brown got me sorted out and then he got me escorted out . . .

So close . . .

I stayed in Florida, and got a job as charge nurse on a 40 bed psychiatry ward in Jacksonville.

Then Nursing got difficult.  Actually, it was the day my license came in the mail that Nursing got difficult.  Somehow, I instinctively knew that I was never going to know as much about how to do the job I had as I thought a person who had that job ought to know.  I had been a really good nursing assistant.  Being a nurse, being in charge, however, was a whole different story.  I was never comfortable at work again.  There was a rule of thirds in psychiatry then- no matter what you did to or for psych patients, one third got worse, one third showed no change, and one third got better. 

It was a very strange year.  I got punched on a regular basis.  I got threatened on a regular basis.  I administered a lot of valium, and haldol, and thorazine.  And it rained almost every afternoon right at the time I would be leaving the building to go home, and I never learned to not leave my umbrella in the car . . .

Reborn . . .

When I was twenty-five, my mom gave me a unicycle for my birthday.  That was in 1973, still three years before I went to Clown College.  I still have it.  It will be thirty-nine tomorrow, same age as Jack Benny . . . 

It spent the last ten years or so in my garage, quietly pining away to be ridden, its tears causing an accumulation of rust to accrue on all its metal surfaces, its tire flat and dry-rotted, it's pedals loose and floppy.  Neglect, pure and simple, not even benign.  Before we moved here, it spent years in our other garage, quietly suffering the same fate.  It never complained, just suffered . . . 

This is how bad the seat had gotten.  The post, and fork, and pedal arms looked the same.  The rim was pitted and scarred, and the one missing spoke had caused the wheel to get out of round.  Fortunately, I can't show you what the rest of it looked like, because it doesn't look like that anymore.

This year, on Spring Break, we went to GrammaLand (Ft. Lauderdale, where gramma lives).  Also in GrammaLand is a place called "the Swap Shop," which is where gramma and grampa work.  They have a business selling hats of all kinds, shapes and prices.  They've been there for what seems like forever.  I met them in 1994 when I went to the Swap Shop to work for the George Hanneford Family Circus.  I would only have been there for the winter, but when spring came in 1995, and I called to find out when Bentley Bros Circus was opening,  I  was informed that my services would no longer be required . . .

So, thanks to the good graces of the Hanneford family, I spent an entire year at the Swap Shop, and I also met my wife (we'll be married 16 years in June) and her sister, and her brother, who is also known at the Swap Shop as "the Bike Man."  His name is Airton, but everyone calls him "Junior," perhaps because his dad (grampa) is also named Airton . . .

This is his card . . .

  

So, this time when we went to GrammaLand, I brought my unicycle with me.  Junior restored it to pristine condition.  He put on a new seat and post, and pedals, new tube and tire, replaced the missing spoke, and trued the wheel.  Then he removed all the accumulated rust.  Years of neglect disappeared in just one day!  And to the amazement of all around me when we got home, I didn't get killed when I tried to ride it!  In fact, I rode it as competently as I did the first time, thirty-nine years ago.  In a straight line, all the way to the end of the parking lot.  I never really mastered turning . . . but hey-- I'll be 64 in the morning, and I can still ride a unicycle!  Or I can again ride a unicycle.  And it's the same unicycle!  This is what it looks like now . . .

Note the flash reflection in the chrome!  That's the part that was covered in rust.  One day with a master "Bike Man," and my near death unicycle is reborn, renewed, cleansed from years of physical neglect, made new, without spot or blemish.  Kind of like what happened to me, after one day with the Master on Halloween, 1988.  I emerged from that experience reborn, renewed, cleansed from years of spiritual neglect, also made new, also without spot or blemish.  Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me  (John 14:6 NKJV)."   Now, if that's not true, I haven't lost anything by believing it .  But if it is true, then, by believing it, I've gained eternal life.   I came to the Father, through Jesus, on October 31, 1988 at First Assembly of God Church in Shreveport, LA, when my unicycle was fifteen years old.  I was forty.  And nothing has ever been the same, since I let Jesus into my life.  If you find this interesting enough to make you curious, then check out this LINK . 

If not . . . think about what happens if what Jesus said is true, and you choose to not believe . . .

And if you're in Ft. Lauderdale, and you need bike work, or a hat, go to the Swap Shop and meet my inlaws . . . tell them Bruce the Clown sent you.                                     

Unless, of course . . .

  

. . . it was 1971.  Which would make more sense.  It was over 40 years ago, either way.  But I think I saw Gunther, and he was on the Red Unit, and Mitch Freddes tells me that the Red Unit played New Haven in the odd number years . . .
That's Mitch, over there  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



And this is Gunther. Mitch is still alive and kicking, and making people laugh. Gunther, unfortunately, is not. This is a link to an article about Gunther . . . Circopedia- Gunther Gebel-Williams   Mitch was on the Red Unit as well, but I'm not sure if he was there that early on (in 1971).

And this is Ron Jarvis . . .  Of all the clown photos I've seen in all the places I've seen them,

he reminds me the most of the Dylan looking clown that caught my eye that first time at the Greatest  Show on Earth.  But it can't be him, because he didn't go to Clown College until 1973 . . . and while I think he was on the Red Unit, I'm not sure.  And now I probably owe him $5.00 anyway, even though he couldn't have been the one. 

But whoever it was, and whenever it was, I'll always be grateful. Because from that day on, up to and including today, I've still always wanted to be a clown . . .

I always wanted to be . . .

When I was little, I wanted to be a cowboy.  But even when I was little, I knew that the kind of cowboy I wanted to be wasn't hiring anymore.   Then, I wanted to be a priest,but that kind of faded over the years.

In the year after I got out of the Navy, I traveled back and forth between Connecticut and California several times, finally ending up in Connecticut and getting a job in the West Haven Veteran's Administration Hospital.  I remember that my first paycheck came exactly two weeks after my last unemployment check.

I was a nursing assistant.  It wasn't that I'd always wanted to be a nursing assistant, or even that I wanted to be one then.  It was that I had been a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy, and I already knew how to be a nursing assistant.  After being a corpsman, it really wasn't that difficult . . .

I had a job!  I had money (such as it was)!  So, to celebrate, I took my god-daughter to the circus.  It was November, 1972.  She was four (she was born while I was at LaSalette in Altamont.  Her mom was Shush's step daughter (her name is Maureen, and she's about as Irish as you can get and still be American).  We rode the bus to the New Haven Coliseum because I didn't have  a car.  It was the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows Inc. Blue Unit.  This is a picture of the program . . .

That's as big as I can make it and still have it fit.  But it was way bigger for me.  I had never seen anything like  the Greatest Show on Earth.  Never.  And that's what it was.  No matter where you looked, there was something astounding going on!  There was a clown who reminded me of Bob Dylan.  At one point, he was walking in a line of clowns on the ring curb, and he made eye contact with me.The other clowns stopped, and he crashed into them and did a fall.  Seems like such a little thing now.

But it got me to thinking.  For the rest of the show, I watched the clowns, and it occurred to me that there wasn't one of them doing anything I didn't think I wouldn't be able to learn . . .

When intermission came, I remembered that I was with Maureen.  And she was gone.  Fortunately, I found her almost immediately.  She was following the toy butcher because something caught her eye, which, I of course, guiltily bought.  We went to the circus annually for a few years after that, and each time it became more special for me.  We about froze to death on the bus on the way home. 

Something in me changed that night.  I think it was because a dream was born . . .