It is a cruel twist of fate that when I go down in the circus history books, if I go down in them at all, it will be because of my titanic battle with Michu, the World’s Smallest Man, and not because I am the only Ringling clown to ever negotiate a contract with Irvin Feld that gave me the absolute right to have every Sunday off from work.
I grew up in a time and a place where Sunday was purposely different from any other day of the week. There was a strong element of self-righteous piety, not to mention smugness and hypocrisy, in the Scandinavian/German neighborhoods of Minneapolis sixty years ago. It had little to do with religion but much to do with goofing off. Businesses, shops, markets, and factories were all closed on Sunday -- but the theaters, restaurants, and saloons were wide open and did a roaring business. As a child and teenager I devoted every Sunday that I could to fishing. The Mississippi was just a few blocks from my house and Como Lake was within easy bicycling distance. My childhood religion consisted of worshipping a bamboo pole and a coffee can full of nightcrawlers.
When I left home to join Ringling Brothers I simultaneously left my mother’s Catholic faith for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormons. And one of the main tenets is proper Sabbath Day observance. The Lord told Joseph Smith: “For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High.”
As a First of May, of course, I worked every Sunday. Business was always good on Sundays -- parents enjoyed taking their children to see the elephants and clowns after church services. But I was troubled about breaking the Sabbath day and not keeping it holy. When I shared my feelings of guilt with my great pal and LDS exemplar Tim Holst he explained his pragmatic view about it.
“Look, Tork” he said. “Some people have to work on Sundays -- like policemen, firemen, doctors and nurses, and bus drivers. The Lord doesn’t condemn them for it. We gotta work on Sundays, too. It’s part of the job. And we always try to get to Sacrament Meeting before the show whenever we can, right? I think the Lord is alright with our efforts.”
But I remained unconvinced. I was uneasy with applying the greasepaint when I should have been knotting a necktie for church services. So I wasn’t exactly heartbroken when I left the show after the next season to go study pantomime down in Mexico. We never had class on Sundays, of course, so I could take the Tres Estrellas bus into Morelia for church each week. And even though the entire service was in Spanish, which I did not understand, I felt more at peace with my own beliefs.
Then came the call from Washington DC, from the Ringling office. Would I be interested in teaming up with Steve Smith to work as advance clown for the Blue Unit?
A week later Smith and I were seated in Irvin Feld’s dim private office. Because his eyesight was damaged by high blood pressure, he kept the blinds down and used special French-manufactured light bulbs inside green lampshades. The dignified murk reminded me of a gypsy mitt joint I had once entered in Greenwich Village.
After a few pleasantries, Mr. Feld got down to brass tacks. We were expected to be ready to start traveling ahead of the show in three weeks. Our salary and benefits were set out in standard boilerplate language in the contract. All we needed to do was sign on the dotted line. Smith eagerly reached for the pen proffered by Mr. Feld and scribbled away. When he handed me the pen I gulped several times as if trying to swallow my Adam’s apple, and finally spoke up in a timid squeak. I had made up my mind to negotiate.
“Um, would it be okay if something were added about me not working on Sundays?” I asked in a whisper.
Smith ground his heel into the toes of my right foot to indicate surprise and mild displeasure at my sudden and unexpected diffidence. His eyes rolled up into his head as he suppressed a groan of frustration. I was going to queer the deal!
“You want Sundays off? Why?” asked Feld.
“Um, because it’s Sunday and I, um, don’t want to break it like it says in the Bible, too” I explained with perfect lucidity.
Mr. Feld shrugged. He handed the contract back to Allen Bloom, who had been looming silently in the background.
“Here, Allen. Take this back and add something about Torkildson having Sundays off so we can get this thing signed. You two boys wait out in the lobby and Allen will have it back in a minute. Good luck.”
He stood up and shook our hands -- and that is how I cannily negotiated the only circus contract to ever contain language about Sabbath Day observance. I wish I still had that contract -- I would donate it to the Smithsonian. (I could use the tax write-off.)
I confess that I did not remain very humble about my unique contract. When circus promoter Art Ricker would ask Smith and I to do a live Sunday TV talk show I simply pulled out my contract and waved it rudely in his face.
“Says here I don’t hafta do it, Art!” I would crow. Lucky for me, Smith was a good sport about the whole thing. He went and did them himself.
In the LDS cosmos where I have lived for the past 45 years, and in which I still continue to live, this story should have a neat wrap up -- one where my obedience to the commandments of God, such as keeping the Sabbath Day holy and going on an LDS mission for two years to Thailand and getting married in the Salt Lake Temple, allow me to keep my standards intact until I reach a hallowed and peaceful old age. But, instead, it turns out that contract was just a fluke. A one-time expedient that would never be repeated again. When I returned from my LDS mission and needed a job desperately, Mr. Feld was glad to hire me back -- but not as advance clown. I worked on the show for a regular clown’s salary, and I had to work Sundays like everyone else in clown alley. And I never got Sundays off again when I went to work for other circuses, either. And I was always glad to get the work, believe you me. I had a large family to support for much of that time.
But now that I’m retired living on a modest fixed income, and not in very good health, every day is a Sabbath Day -- a day of enforced idleness, if you will, and quiet contemplation. And even though there is no neat ending to this narrative, there is this one thing I’ve learned over the years about Sunday -- real Sabbath Day worship comes from the heart and not from outward forms and actions and restrictions. It took me a long time to learn that simple and basic bit of Christian doctrine.
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