The Day the Circus Came to Town

One day Hunt Brothers Circus came to town, and set up on what was then called the “old school ground.”  I don’t know why it was called that because there was no old school there in my growing-up days—just a field, and a not very big field at that. But kids from all over town, including yours truly, went to watch the goings-on as they set up. It was very exciting!

We watched and pointed and said a lot of “wows” and “Hey!  Look-over-there’s!” Summer had suddenly become better than ever. It was like the circus had come to town—oh, that’s right—it had. We were all filled with great anticipation of something very magical that was going to take place that very night and into the next day.

I was about 12 years old as I remember, and getting an allowance of 50¢ a week. That was an okay amount for most things, but this was big time. There would be the exciting stuff happening under the big top, a side show with strange exotic creatures of unimaginable weirdness, cotton candy, popcorn, and neat things to buy that only kids could fully appreciate as art. Yes, I would definitely be going! The only thing holding me back was my financial limitations. My 50¢ would definitely not be enough.

That, of course, meant asking my parents for the extra funds to cover my more-than-usual expenses. But what if they said no? Then what? They had their own money issues—of that I was aware. It was an ongoing topic of “discussion” around the house. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t be open to giving me some money, but I wasn’t quite sure just how open they would be.

Fortunately I was friends with two boys who lived in an apartment on the top floor of Braddock’s Bar and Liquor Store (now known as Braddock’s Tavern). They lived there because their father and uncle (who lived on the second floor) owned it. And why that was fortunate was because Tommy had an idea: “Let’s see if Bill the bartender (for a while I thought Bill’s surname was “bartender”) has anything for us to do to earn some money.” Sounded like a good idea to me. So we did. And he did.

He assigned us the job of cleaning the chrome legs on the bar stools. We were given SOS pads and a bucket of water. It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it—especially if they wanted to go to the circus. I would say that we took pride in our work, but I don’t remember that part, which probably means that we didn’t. We did, however, get paid and that was the point. When I told my parents about it, they were definitely taken aback, and said, “You could have asked us for some money.”

Of course, as I said, I thought about doing that, but then I would have missed out on a life experience that apparently left quite an impression on me that has lasted all these years. I still remember Tommy and Bill the bartender, and how glad I was to get some cash for a job in a bar. By the way, I never put that down on any resume.

I tell you that story because meaningful life experiences come in many shapes and sizes. Some of them are laughable (many of them much later), some are painful, some are “ah hah” moments, some are just interesting to think about, and others are quite heartwarming for years to come.

At the moment we are all having a universal life experience right now. How will it fit into the library of our memories?  Will it include laughable moments? That would be nice. Painful moments? Quite likely some if not a lot. Will there be any “ah hah” enlightenment? Yes, if we’re paying attention. I’m sure there will be some interesting ones that we will talk about with one another later. But most of all, and I hope this is truly the case, there will be some heartwarming moments that will have touched that deeper part of us that we call our souls, and perhaps they will give us appreciation for the wonder and power of human love.

Just a thought.