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.