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)