Saturday, June 16, 2007

Carson & Barnes 1981 #11


C&B-11, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 6/16/2007 05:54:00 AM

7 comments:

Pat Cashin said...

In 1997 I graduated from Clown College.

I found out at the end of that summer that one of my professors had worked very hard to secure me a complete academic scholarship, a "free ride" to finish my senior year, possibly to keep me from throwing away a promising career in the media arts for the dime store glitz of the circus.

I'd never been better than a C student in grade school but really enjoyed college and had a perfect 4.0 GPA.

So, rather than leave Sarasota as a First of May with the Greatest Show on Earth, I headed home and went back to school.

Soon after graduation the mighty Carson & Barnes show came to Ocean Township, NJ. I did a lot of advance work for the show and got to meet all the local circus fans and model builders. When the show arrived I was invited to be "guest clown" and take part in the opening, spec and finale.

I arrrived on the lot first thing in the morning and watched them raise the tent. If you've never watched it, it's absolutely awe-inspiring. I can only imagine what the age of the tented circus must have been like "back in the day" but standing in the Carson & Barnes tent that more felt holier than any church I've ever been in.

I went home, did my makeup for the matinee and came back to the lot to be greeted as a friend by the whole show. The Russian and Chinese girls all giggled and wantd pictures with the clown (most of the show's clowns were Latin or Russian and wore minimal makeup and costumes) and Larry Allen Dean and I had a long conversation about clowns "on the Big Show" between the 4 and 7:00 shows.

It was sitting with a lion tamer, dressed in a clown suit, in the shadow of the biggest circus tent I'd ever seen as the sun went down behind us that I was REALLY struck me... the magnitude of what is often described in books as "the indescribeable beauty and magic of the wonderful world of the circus and its people"... whatever. It suddenly felt good, it felt right and it felt like home.

I've been there ever since. So I thank Clown College, my local Circus Fans and Model Builders, the management, cast and crew of the 1998 edition of the Carson & Barnes Circus and most of all Mr. Larry Allen Dean for preparing me and helping me feel welcome on my very first day on a circus.

I can't think of a better place, better company or a better way to have started.

~Pat Cashin

16 June, 2007 08:28
Anonymous said...

Pat: Thanks for your perspective. I became an ardent circus fan in August, 1999, when I followed C&B to lots at Burlington, Ottumwa and Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. (I then lived in St. Louis and last summer moved to Stratford, CT.) John Moss III was ringmaster and his wife worked the ticket booth on the menagerie. LaBrone Harris was in the office for that one season. C&B still had its very big tent, and it looked like a million-dollars on a city part lot in Ottumwa. The fleet was so brightly and colorfully painted (I took photos for the 1999 route book edited by LaBrone and Jim and Beverly Royal). I was hooked. Like so many other circus fans, I've seen more small towns (and big ones, too) than I would ever seen and taken so many photos and did scores of video interviews. The cost in time and money: staggering; the value: unreplacable in the friendships I've made and the jackpots I've heard.

And all because my dad took me to see Clyde Beatty performing with the cats on his own 15-car railer when it stopped in my hometown of McAlester, Oklahoma, in the late 1940s (I'm not sure of the exact year).

I think Geary and Barbara Byrd and all the other circus owners who continue to tell circus fans: "Make yourself at home."

Lane Talburt

16 June, 2007 12:30
Harry Kingston said...

Hi Pat and Lane,
Seeing Carson and Barnes since 1970 has been world's of fun for me.
No day is ever the same when on the lot as they are all diffrent but D. R. Miller or Hemie Garcia could fit them on any lot.
It was circus science to see how they did it and it worked.
On hard lots and in the mud it made no difference as the show must go on.
Yes, what a thrill it was as a fan to be told make yourself at home on this circus.
D. R. and Isla Miller, Barbara and Geary Byrd and Johnny Pugh have made many a circus day great for me.
And now getting to meet John Ringling North II and being welcomed on Kelly Miller with it starting a new era in the circus business was a thrill.
All of these fine circus folks have been extremely nice to us and have answered all my circus questions how this or that was done.
I asked D. R. Miller how Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. compared to Carson and Barnes. D. R. said C&B was larger. In 1956 when most tenters had closed D. R. came out with large posters that said, Last of the circus see it now or miss it forever, and D. R. we packed in. Most shows were full houses till the end of the season.
Carson and Barnes is a family circus as many have been on it for many years running it.
With most costs exculating lets hope the shows still can make the nut.
Seeing the tents go up is still the best free show in America.
I feel like a young boy seeing it for the first time.
D. R. Miller said the circus is like a war and you have to win the war every day.
But seeing my first circus back in the early 1950's I was hooked with it all.
Mom carried me to many a circus seeing Ringling under canvas, King-Cole, and the Beatty railroad circus, etc.
I just got to see the Ringling Gold unit here in town and seeing them set it up and tear it down and had a great time and was welcomed and was treated the best.
May all your days be circus days.
Harry

16 June, 2007 16:45
Anonymous said...

Lane: The Beatty show played McAlester August 19, 1947, the year of the big train wreck.

Little known trivia: Will Rogers took the Scottish Rite in McAlester.

16 June, 2007 17:10
Anonymous said...

Thanks Dave, for the date of the Beatty show in McAlester, Oklahoma. Now I know that I was 8 years old (I'll be 68 come Monday). Tell me more about the train wreck at the end of the season. I'm unfamiliar with that event.

As you may recall, Oklahoma for many years was a "dry" state, absolutely rampant with bootleggers (I had two on my newspaper route and saw the sheriff raid one joint about a year before the bootleggers managed to buy him off.)

Will Rogers had an oft-quoted gibe about Okies' protensity toward hypocracy when it came to drinking anything stronger than 3.2 beer:

"Oklahomans will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls."

Lane T

16 June, 2007 17:46
Buckles said...

We were showing on a shopping center parking in Rochester, Minn. with our elephant act in 1956 when we got word that the Ringling Show had folded.
I was quite shaken but my dad simply sat down and wrote D.R. a letter asking, "How does it feel to own the biggest circus in the world?"

16 June, 2007 18:00
Anonymous said...

Lane: The train wreck took place on a jump from the Sioux City date (July 7th) on the way to the Norfolk, Nebraska date the next day.

A derailment of eight cars on the Chicago & Northwestern near the tiny town of Hubbard, Nebraska, killed one man (John Fisher, the kid pusher) and injured several others.

The show lost four playing days and sent several cars to the shops for work. For awhile some system cars were used including a couple of nice Pullman sleepers.

The show reopened in Hastings on the 12th. The show's coaches came back about a week later but the flats didn't make it back for a month.

Speaking of bootleggers, Art Miller and Pete Smith used to share an apartment over the establishment of Hugo's finest. A couple of times Art let me stay there a week or so after the advance came in as Pete was still out with the show. Buckles has some tales about this outfit if he'll share them with us.

17 June, 2007 05:29

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