Juggling and Other Circus Skills (5 photos)

Marbles, tops and yo yo’s got me through grade school.

Tried Baseball.

Useless.

Me, not the game.

Short-lived career.

Throw with left hand, catch with left hand.

Coach said, “‘you are out in left field!”

Tried juggling.

Kept four balls in the air at once. Never graduated to knives, or flames.

Are fire-eaters employable?

Never developed a taste for gas.

The Circus beckoned.

Built my first unicycle.

Managed well on one wheel.

The juggling….well, who knows?

Travel with Barnum? First chance came with a fair and midway that came into town. Sound familiar? Owner's daughter in all of this. PG rating, no names please.

Seventeen, and all over the province, working summer to fall fairs every week. Tearing down and putting up rides. No fire-eaters, no jugglers. Five-two, never shaved and underage.

Home and school, fall ’69. Stalag 12. No escape. Or was I, thankfully, in English hands with Ed,’When we were fighting in Tripoli….,' Cable, for homeroom? Great Escape?

Nope…Der Alten Adler…I mean, my old man, in Math Dept. Eagle eye home and school. No escape, I could contrive, no move from Houdini’s lives, nor Gardiner’s sleight of hand, to extricate me from these chains.

René Hackstetter November 29, 2020. 

Revised Jan 1, 2021.