Memories of Ben #13

This is the time that we went to "The Ed Sullivan Show" and Buckles had to stay with "Polack Bros. Circus" to work the other elephants. It's a long story. The season before the agent (Dobritch) kept our money and on top of that we had to pay the income tax on it. To say the least I was "VERY MAD". So I told Louie the story and told him that I would not do the Ed Sullivan show again. Louie said he didn't blame me. Sullivan had already announced that "Opal" would be there for the show and despite Dobritch trying to sell him a bear act Sullivan called Buckles to find out what was wrong. After hearing the whole story he asked if I could just bring "Opal" myself. Buckles said he could do the show without Opal and get Ben out of school a few days to help me if they paid the expenses. So everything went OK and we even stayed over a few days to see the sights all cost paid. I had always wanted to do the whirl on the show, but the stage was so small Buckles didn't want to take a chance. Well you know the show was live. So I talked Ben into doing the whirl. It was close but we pulled it off. Buckles almost had a heart attack when he saw us going into it. It was tight but we did it, no problems.....