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 . . ."