Barbara in the Big City

With the Big Apple Circus we would show Lincoln Center for almost three months each winter and Barbara was right at home, she went everywhere and seemed to know everybody. This was her Chippendale dancer "Michael". She became chummy with a lady that was the Resident Psychiatrist of the NY City Ballet right next door. She would occasionally bring over some of her dancers/patients to chat and see the elephants and we all know that circus people are pretty goofy at times but ballet dancers are beyond belief. The Prima Ballerina was the worst, Maria ------- , she would come over to our trailer unannounced and tell Barbara all her troubles, then weep and then be silent for a long time. It finally reached a point where I would ask her if her idiot dancer was coming by and she would get mad at me and accuse me of being insensitive. One year she enrolled in an Art School down on 57th St. and each morning while I was washing the elephants the would come by with her satchel and back pack trudging off to school. I thought she would be drawing something like an apple but this place started them right off with nudes. After about a week of bringing back drawings of men's genetalia I asker her if that was all she ever drew and she replied "Of course, I can't do hands".