Sunday, March 20, 2011

"Tommy" #3


Scan13331, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

"Tommy", "Mysore" and "Calcutta" about 1956.
Diano would book this act on a date and have the barn man
"Charlie" load them in the truck with instructions to find
someone to work the the act when he got there.
One year we were in a display with them in St. Louis and I went
to my dad all excited, "They're looking for someone to work the
Diano elephants!" and he said, "Don't even think about it."
I was greatly disappointed.
Lou Reagan was there with some Paul Kelly stuff and got the job.

Posted by Buckles at 3/20/2011 06:33:00 AM

4 comments:

Buckles said...

My father was supremely confident that it was just a mater of time until "Tommy" would blow up and wreak havoc.
He also assured me that when I grew up I would stop picking the onions off my hamburgers.
Wrong on both counts.

20 March, 2011 07:18
lar said...

Wasn't one of Axel's herd named Calcutta when they came to swap out with you at CW Florida? Same one?

20 March, 2011 11:51
Buckles said...

Axel's "Calcutta" was always with the Ringling Show.
This "Calcutta" was imported in 1949 by Hamid-Morton, later sold to Tony Diano and then to RBBB in
1987 when Kenny had to buy all five of Diano's elephants to get "Tommy".

20 March, 2011 13:47
JIM ELLIOTT said...

Two years ago, I visited Dorthey Kelly. She told me she once worked Tommy, at the Toledo Shrine date. Could that be true?

20 March, 2011 19:50

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