Beatty-Cole 1960's-70's #7

Beatty-Cole, clown Kenny Dodd, 7-4-65, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. PHOTO 7 (Beatty-Cole clown Kenny Dodd, 7-4-65) Meanwhile, in the 1965 backyard, I believe Kenny Dodd gets ready for a show on the Fourth of July. Seeing the house trailers in the background reminded me that the status symbol in trailers back then was the silver Airstream with its rounded aerodynamic corners, the equivalent of today's fancy buses. Beatty himself had an Airstream but in the late '60s-early '70s, I recall most performers pulled Holiday Ramblers. Of course, if you could pull your Airstream with a Cadillac, you were doing quite well. However, with the gas crisis during the winter of 1973-74, some criticism emerged in the Sarasota newspaper about people who drove gas-guzzling cars. I remember that Helen Wallenda sent a letter to the paper defending the Cadillacs driven by show people because their engines had the power needed to pull a house trailer. That gas crisis caused the Beatty show to carry a semi that was a fuel tanker truck for the next couple of years and it was also the beginning of the show doing a lot more 2-day stands.