Sunday dinner at my daughter’s house up in Orem was wonderful. There was a crisp kale and cabbage salad with citrus dressing; warm cornbread in a huge iron skillet baked by another one of my daughters; and all the slow cooker short ribs a man could ever want -- I went back so many times that the pile of bones I left behind reminded me of an elephant’s graveyard from a Tarzan movie. After the feast my special easy chair was pulled into the sunlight in the living room and the grandkids drifted over to stand or sit by me -- they wanted to hear another clown story. And I was glad, very glad, to oblige.
Because, you see, their parents, my children, didn’t get to hear very many clown stories when they were growing up. Things went badly for my wife and I, both financially and romantically, until the day that Amy packed the kids in the van and drove off to her sister’s farm -- never to return. I went back on the road, and then moved to Thailand, and the kids and I became strangers to each other for nearly twenty years before we started to reconcile. So all the tall tales and quirky anecdotes I had about Swede Johnson and Prince Paul and Irvin Feld festered inside of me like pathogens. There was no one to tell them to -- my Thai girlfriends, for the most part, didn’t want to hear about the circus. They just wanted to go to the karaoke bar or the beach. Thank god for a few good friends who tolerated my yarning from time to time -- without that release valve I would have spun out of control to some lunatic fringe until I was lost to the solar system.
But this fine Sabbath day as I sat in my comfortable chair, wiping barbeque sauce off my hands with a bandana, all I had to do was ask “Well, you twerps, what clown story do you want me to tell you today?” And the grandkids jumped in without pause, asking for their favorite adventures all at the same time:
“Tell us about the dynamite box!”
“The time you locked Michu in his trunk!”
“The washing machine where you came out as a devil!”
“The elephants, the elephants, the elephants -- tell me about the elephants!”
“That one where the old clown crashed the clown car into the big pole!”
I held up my hand to command their silence. They stopped hopping around like monkeys on pogo sticks and sprawled on the floor to hear the first story. Their parents looked on with indulgent smiles, and the little babies, too young to know that a good story was coming, crawled between them looking for neglected pieces of cake.
“Have I told you about the pygmy hippopotamus on the Carson and Barnes show?” I asked quietly.
“No!” they shouted back. “Whatsa pick-me hippomatapuss?” One of the babies crawls up to my leg and yanks on my trousers, indicating a desire to nestle on my lap. I pick her up, smooth her silky hair, and lay her across my ample spare tire.
“Well” I begin, “on Carson and Barnes they had this pygmy hippopotamus -- it was the size of a German shephard. Most hippos, y’know, get so big and blubbery that when they walk on the ground it trembles like there’s an earthquake. But not these tiny ones -- they come from deep inside the Congo and are so shy that when the natives sneak up on them and shout ‘Boo!’ the poor creatures fall over in a dead faint and are captured and sent off to a zoo or a circus . . . “
One of the boys interrupts: “What kinda sound does a hippopotamus make?”
This might stump a regular old grandpa, but not me -- I’ve seen too many National Geographic specials. I open my mouth as wide as I can and bring forth a deep bellow that leaves my larynx hors de combat. The boy nods his head in satisfaction -- that sounds reasonable to him.
“So anyway, on Carson and Barnes they have this tradition that when it’s your birthday they grab you and throw you in the pygmy hippo’s tank!”
Another interruption, this time from a grand daughter who demands to know didn’t I get any birthday cake first? I assure her that not only did I get cake on my birthday, but also cotton candy flavored ice cream and a frozen dill pickle on a stick. This last item produces groans and energetic gagging from all quarters. The infant on my lap senses that something disagreeable has been mentioned and decides to slide off before a fist fight breaks out.
At this point four-year-old Lance loudly proclaims that he wants some of that cotton-flavored ice cream and goes in search of his mother for a big bowl of it. His howls of frustration at being told there is none available are clearly audible in the next county.
I continue my tale. “Well sir, I was bound and determined that they’d never catch ME to throw in that dirty old tub with the pygmy hippo -- so I hid in one of the porta-potties until it was show time.”
Several hands are raised -- the grandkids are beginning to show me some proper respect at last.
“Yes, what is it?”
They want to know what a porty potty is. When I explain it’s design and function they are openly skeptical. Grandpa is obviously pulling their leg -- there is no such thing. I smugly let them appeal to their parents for support, only to be brought up short by the corroboration that yes, Virginia, there is a porta potty.
“Now, if you hooligans will let me finish my story . . .”
And I go on to detail the fiendish machinations practiced on my natal day to lure me close enough to the pygmy hippo’s cage to be given an unsavory bath -- and how I outwitted every stratagem until the evening show was over and tear down had begun. Then I described the elephants working under the glare of kerosene lamps to pull down the king poles and butt the rolled up canvas onto the tent truck. The best part, I tell them, is that the candy butchers give away all the extra hot dogs and unsold popcorn during tear down, and I could eat so much of it for free that it came out my ears. The grandkids are clearly envious of my culinary bonanza. They become restless and discontented until their parents wisely avoid a mutiny by handing out generous portions of cheddar Goldfish crackers with glasses of milk.
As the sun begins to set on this glorious day I regale them with stories of Tim Holst riding a camel into the ocean at Long Beach, where it tossed him into the briny deep and returned to the circus lot without him. And how I dressed up as a giant chicken to lay Styrofoam eggs around the track. And the time Larry Fine of the Three Stooges came to visit clown alley and shook all of our hands. He was in a wheelchair, on oxygen, but he gave us each a big smile and thumbs up.
Heads are drooping and the infants are whining for their mother’s breasts by the time I wind up the last tale. It’s time to go home.
“Pack up the dukey boxes and keep your grouch bag near!” I call as my children and their children depart. My oldest son Adam gives me a quizzical look at the front door and asks “How much of that was true, dad?”
I tell him what the old Ringling clown Swede Johnson used to tell me: “It ain’t the truth, but it’s close enough.”
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