To David Carlyon

Durng our discussion of "rope walking" elephants, this is what Mr. Herriott meant when he referred to "walking the plank". This is a section of 8" channel iron that "Lydia" is turning around on. Mr. Rice might have used something like this 150 yers ago and gotten away with it. You may note that by this time, I had been added to the family business as truck driver, prop hand and general all around goof. Here I am seen about to remove the plank which I might add was well received by the audience. This picture was taken on the Orrin Davenport Shrine dates. In the mid 1950's when the big dates were concluded and either the Ringling or Cole Show elephants had left. Mr. Davenport closed out his route with a smaller unit that included towns like Duluth, Winnipeg, Brandon, Regina, Saskatoon, etc. that moved across Canada by baggage car and which the elephants shared with acts like Joe Zoppe's horses or Jack Joyce's camels. This picture taken in Regina. The unique thing about this show was that it included all the feature acts from the big dates like Klauser's bears, Unus, Francis Brunn, Dorita Konyot, Lemke chimps, Helen Haag chimps, Victor Julian, etc. to my surprise, one year my dad and Count Roberto de Vasconcellos became big buddies. In 1956 we even had Merle Evans as band conductor. On the return trip each year, I loaded many cases of Canadian liquor into the baggage car from which Mr. Davenport would entertain his Shrine committees during the off-season.