One winter Sid Kellner booked the three small elephants to appear at a month long engagement with the E.K. Fernandez Circus in Hawaii while I remained behind with "Anna May" and "Ellie".
I will let hmy wife comment on what turned out to be like one Hollywood airplane disaster movies.
Unknowingly the crates should have been made smaller and with all that wiggle room they thrashed around violently to a point I could see the wing tips alternately rising up and down about a foot while they were still on the ground.
The movie could have been titled "Barbara, Ben and 4 month old Shannon's Merry Adventure".
She later told me that early in the flight one of the pilots was so concerned he actually came up with a pistol.
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Thursday, July 24, 2014
James Bros. Early 1970's #7
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This was the plane that Shannon & I went in to Hawaii. The plane that the elephants went in was two or three stories tall. When we got there they wanted us to open the crates and have the elephants stick there heads out the plane door, telling me that elephants wouldn't go any place that it wasn't safe. I told them that they could tell the elephants that."BUT WE WERE NOT GOING TO DO THAT." We had a terrible time unchaining them and getting the bulls out. Ben had to climb in the crates to unchain them. I did not want him to do it. But he said that was the only way to do it. He was right. Scared hell out of me. Ben was 16 years old. Ben did a wonderful job there. Then the big shots wanted us to feed the bulls straw and sawdust."WE TOLD THEM NO HEY NO ACT." Then we had trouble with A.G.V.A. They were going to hold dues out of the pay for the union. I told them to go ahead that we got paid through Sid Kellner. But they pulled this just before the act. So I told Ben to be under dressed, as I was. So we bluffed them on that one. They made the mistake of paying before the act. So we pulled our clothes off just in time for the act. The other performers did the same thing we did. So the Union blanked out there. Ben was a fantastic help with Shannon, because he was only four months old. Buckles wanted to take care of Shannon, in the states. And he could have done a good job. But I couldn't stand to be away from him.And all the ladies helped us with him.....Barbara....
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