Clowns in the White House

There have been circus clowns in and around the White House for over a hundred years.

(Insert your own joke about White House clowns here -- go on, get it out of your system, so I can continue this piece without any further cackles from the peanut gallery.)

In 1868 the famous clown Dan Rice, upon whom our national icon Uncle Sam was modeled, ran for President. Rice lost, but his fame and fleeting wealth allowed him to hobnob with several presidents before and after the Civil War. Starting with President Harry Truman, Ringling clown Felix Adler entertained children on the White House lawn during the annual Easter Egg Roll. And in 1977 yours truly, along with a dozen other denizens of clown alley, were invited to tour the Jimmy Carter White House when Ringling played Washington DC. To my knowledge Jimmy Carter is the only President ever to invite circus clowns on this kind of a tour. Say what you want about the guy, but I think this showed real heart.

Head promoter Art Ricker told us the news in clown alley. No strings attached; we didn’t have to show up in makeup and costume to cavort for the crowd. The Carter administration, in recognition of our invaluable services over the years at keeping America laughing, invited us to tour the White House.

“Will Jimmy and Rosalynn be there?” I asked.

“Sorry, pal” replied Ricker, blowing a fetid cloud of cigar smoke over our heads. “They got better things to do than show you the crockery and donnicker. You’ll have a private tour guide. Be at the West Gate at 9:30 tomorrow morning.”

“Aw, I don’t want to see ‘em anyway -- when you’ve seen one peanut farmer you’ve seen ‘em all!” said Dougie Ashton, who was Australian and never let anyone forget it.

“Maybe we’ll get some Billy Beer” speculated Swede Johnson. That sealed the deal, and the next morning a goodly segment of clown alley rolled up to the West Gate for a looksee.

I should mention that we had picked up a camp follower a few days before. He showed up in clown alley, a nondescript hominid dressed in frayed brown polyester slacks, a blue polo shirt that was too tight for him, and sneakers on their way to becoming huaraches. His strabismus left you wondering who he was looking at when he talked, and he loved to talk. He claimed to be JoJo the Dog Eared Boy, whose grandfather had been JoJo the Dog Faced Boy -- one of P.T. Barnum’s freak show discoveries. The grandson’s only canine characteristics, as far as I could tell, were his wet dog B.O. and a tangled growth of hair inside his ears. He initially asked if he could sign on as a clown, at which point several of the older clowns picked him up and threw him out while he was still talking. Nothing daunted, he immediately came back in, to universal jeers and requests that this time he be tossed to the killer kangaroo.

“Don’t do that guys, don’t do that” he pleaded. “I can do errands for ya, fetch stuff for ya -- fetch stuff!”

We usually had one of the roustabouts, known as Smiley for his permanently sour scowl, run our errands, but he had evaporated in DC due to an outstanding warrant some insistent deputies wanted to serve him. So we loaded JoJo the Dog Eared Boy with requests for  newspapers, baby oil, bagels with cream cheese, and cigarettes. He collected a few bucks and took off. If he never showed up again, it was no big deal; and if he proved faithful it would take care of Smiley’s absence.

He did return with the desired items, and immediately attached himself to clown alley like a lamprey. Forty five years ago thoughts of security and paranoia had not yet merged into the toxic neurosis we experience today. JoJo was no stranger than most of the inhabitants of clown alley anyways, so why not let him tag along for some laughs and whatever help he could be? An old circus tradition called ‘mousing’ allowed clown alley to designate an official gofer, who then was given a bunk with the roustabouts and two dukey boxes a day. A dukey box contained an apple or banana, two hard boiled eggs, a ham salad or chicken salad sandwich, and a large messy hunk of apple pie. No salary; the mouser had to depend on tips from clown alley for any folding money.   

So JoJo came along with us to the White House, gabbling continuously about how his grandfather, the original JoJo, had once licked William McKinley’s hand. Our tour guide was a perky young thing named Cindy. Chico, Anchor Face, and several other clown alley lotharios immediately began hitting on her. I don’t think she had been forewarned about our unconventional group; she seemed taken aback when Anchor Face offered to wrap her in cotton candy and then lick it off to the tune of Diana Ross’ ‘Love Hangover.’

JoJo had to be restrained from nuzzling her; she appeared ready to scream and dash away when Prince Paul stepped importantly up to her and said: “Ignore these schlemiels, madam. Continue with your ministrations to our historical ignorance. They won’t bother you again.” This last sentence was said with such a ferocious stare at us that we all took an involuntary step backwards. Nobody ever dared to cross Prince; he was a dwarf with a ferocious sense of pride and a deadly shot with anything sharp and heavy within reach.

I must admit I don’t remember very much of that tour. We were shown some rickety chairs and a musty set of curtains or two, along with a bunch of knick knacks that Dolly Madison had imported from Britain. There were dozens of portraits of presidents past. I asked if we could see the haunted Lincoln bedroom I had read about in Reader’s Digest, but Cindy said that wing was closed for renovations.

“Where do they keep Marilyn Monroe’s body frozen?” asked Dougie, just to test Prince out. “I hear it’s under the bowling alley, am I right?” Prince began fingering a small potted fern in a sinister manner, so Ashton hastily backed down. “No worries, mate. I was just foolin’” he said nervously.

 Chico sidled up to me just as we were finishing up, to show me a large glass ashtray he had nicked. It had the Presidential Seal engraved on it.

“This’ll make a great birthday present for Sandy, dontcha think?” he quizzed me conspiratorially.

I blanched in terror at his kleptomaniac effrontery.

“Put that back you idiot!” I hissed at him. “They’ll lock us all up is some dungeon over at the Smithsonian!”

“Don’t be such a maroon” he said, sounding like Bugs Bunny. “It’s just like taking towels from a big hotel; they expect it.”

Sneering at my cowardice, he strolled away with the loot hooked securely under his arm and plainly visible. Again, I can only marvel at the laissez-faire of those long ago days -- the Secret Service didn’t hustle Chico away for a session of waterboarding and he walked out of there with an extremely unique souvenir. The rest of us got cheap plastic pens from Cindy that had stenciled on the barrel “White House Tour 1977.” I bet they don’t even have ashtrays in the White House anymore. Not where you could just pinch one, anyways.