Asked & Answered. Part One.

 

Do you have any nicknames?

I grew up being called Tim by everyone, except my Uncle Louie, who called me 'Bow Tie' because I once wore a little red bow tie to his house one Sunday right after church.   My mother called me Timmy when she was pleased with me, and Timothy when she was about to lower the boom.  As for my dad, I could use the old Henny Youngman joke: "I thought my name was Shut Up until I was seven years old."  When I joined the circus I was christened with several nicknames. Because I wore a stark white face makeup and had prominent canines I was dubbed 'Dracula."  Prince Paul, the famous dwarf clown, called me either 'Schmutz Finger' or 'Heim Potz."  Swede Johnson, a lion-tamer turned clown, called me 'Pinhead.'   Sometimes I was referred to as 'Pete the Pup' in reference to the dog in the Our Gang series, because I had a black circle painted under my right eye.  By the end of my first season with Ringling most everyone was calling me 'Tork.'  That is the name I prefer to be called by friends and acquaintances.  My kids and grand kids now call me 'Grandpa Tim' -- which I like a lot.  For several years, when I worked in radio, I used the name 'Tim Roberts.'  I've also used that as a pen name on some of my earliest writing work.

Where have you lived?

I lived in Minneapolis for the first 18 years of my life.  Most of that time was spent at 900 19th Avenue S. E.  I can still remember our phone number:  612-331-7441.  I kept my legal residence in Minneapolis when I traveled with the circus.  I lived in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, when studying pantomime with Sigfrido Aguilar.  Then Laie, Hawaii, and Thailand, during my 2 year proselytizing mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Williston, North Dakota, where I was news director for KGCX Radio and met Amy. Provo, Utah, several times over the years -- and now it's our permanent home.  Wichita, Kansas, when I was Ronald McDonald.  Haines City, Florida, when I worked at Circus world.  Bottineau, North Dakota.  Tioga, North Dakota.  Spencer, Iowa.  Sheldon, Iowa.  Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.  Park Rapids, Minnesota. Woodbridge, Virginia.  Of all the places I visited during my years traveling with the circus, there are two I would especially enjoy living in.  In summer, Duluth, Minnesota -- because of the magnificent Lake Superior. And in winter, Venice, Florida, because of the public fishing pier and public beaches.  But those are only dreams.  During the past few months, as Amy and I have thought about moving out of Valley Villa here in Provo, I have had several very vivid dreams that warned me that we should stay where we are. So we will.

How would you describe your cultural identity?

I've already written about the 'Law of Janten' in a previous post, but I want to repeat it here. Because it is really the cultural environment I grew up in, and the environment I encountered in several places I've lived in as an adult. It was created by the Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandemose to describe the mindset of a rural society:

1. You're not to think you are anything special.
2. You're not to think you are as good as we are.
3. You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
4. You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
5. You're not to think you know more than we do.
6. You're not to think you are more important than we are.
7. You're not to think you are good at anything.
8. You're not to laugh at us.
9. You're not to think anyone cares about you.
10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.

 I grew up in a culture where having a dog or a cat for a pet was considered a normal middle-class thing. But my folks wouldn't stand for either animal in the house.  Too much mess and too much work, they claimed.  So I was limited to the little green turtles you could buy for a dime at the Woolworth Five & Dime. I think a dog would have been good for me, and I've always felt somehow cheated of one of the rights of boyhood because of that lack.  

I grew up in a fog of cigarette smoke and beer fumes. American culture in the 1950s and early 60s encouraged and glorified tobacco and alcohol as wonderful additions to any adult life. Adult gatherings always featured smoking and beer. Until I joined the LDS Church at 18, I looked forward to puffing and guzzling my way through life as well. 

I identified the culture that surrounded me as American, where communists were the enemy. By communists we meant Russians and Chinese. Both nationalities were suspect.  They would keep trying to take over the world, to nuke us Americans into submission, if we didn't keep eating our spinach and voting Republican. Because the Democrats were soft on communism. Everybody knew that. 

Each night as a child mom would hear my prayers as I knelt by my bed. It was  always the same rote prayer, memorized by the time I was four:

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Mom took us to St Lawrence Catholic Church for Mass every Sunday morning, but other than that a few halfhearted attempts at going to confession, the Catholic culture did not impact my life very much.  Before I the LDS Church was introduced to me, I was learning towards becoming a Quaker. 

In some of the classes I took at the U of M the younger white students occassionally admitted that they had no traditions, no culture, to ground them. They said this mournfully, as if their parents had abused them somehow.  They referred to it as 'white bread culture.'  I think they got all that hooey from sociology books.  Me, I never gave any thought to the culture or milieu I was raised in -- I grew up in it, I thought I had escaped it, then found myself back in the same stew of prejudices and preconceptions.  But finally the Gospel of Jesus Christ has worked most of the cultural knots out of me.