Swede and Mabel: A Clown Alley Love Story

I was only 17 when I served my first hitch as a clown with Ringling. It was so much fun, and so physically demanding, that the normal romantic pursuits of an American adolescent were for the most part laid aside. Besides, I was socially awkward and usually broke. My idea of a good time was to hole up in my roomette on the train with a book and a bag of Bugles. Sensual experiences were pretty much limited to soaking my throbbing feet in cold water and epsom salts after a long day of pounding around on cement floors in the Capezio slippers Ringling provided for all their production numbers. My feet were going flat, but my heart was intact and unmolested.

I was an anomaly in clown alley, not having a steady girlfriend or a spouse. The veteran clowns, for the most part were married or between marriages, and the younger ones had steady girlfriends or were on the make for one. I prefered to sit back and observe the battle of the sexes from a safe distance.

Among the married clowns, Swede Johnson and his wife Mabel seemed the most comfortable with the venerable institution. Swede was a retired lion tamer who started clowning after the big cats turned on him one day, ripping his legs to bloody ribbons. His wife Mabel was the head of Women’s Wardrobe. He was a thin galoot and she was a fleshy barrel of a woman. Swede preferred to stay calm and quiet while Mabel was an excitable matron who brooked no nonsense from showgirl or circus star in her spangled realm. They reminded me of the old nursery rhyme:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.

His wife could eat no lean.

And so between the two of them

They licked the platter clean.

When she wanted Swede for anything she ambled over to clown alley and gave vent to a piercing shriek that resembled a factory whistle at noontime:

“Sweeeeeeede!”

Swede would drop whatever he was doing and nimbly thread his way between trunks to hold a confab with his spouse. Since she made good money as Wardrobe Mistress, their discussions outside the walls of clown alley rarely involved financial wrangles. More often Mabel simply wanted to unload some of her vast indignation about snippy showgirls upon Swede’s uncomplaining shoulders. Swede rarely got a word in edgewise, but that didn’t seem to bother him. As Mabel complained about the way the showgirls left their tiaras all over the place or tore holes in their nylon sleeve length gloves or kept plucking the ostrich plumes out of their turbans to decorate their roomettes, he would nod like a bobblehead doll, with a patient grin on his painted face.

Swede and Mabel traveled in style. They lived on the circus train but drove between towns in a salmon colored Coupe Deville Cadillac. Swede did all the driving; when it came to piloting that big boat across the highways and byways he was completely and unashamedly misogynistic.

“I don’t mind if women want to vote” he said, puffing on his ever present Chesterfield, “but I’ll be damned if I let one drive my car. They dent up cars running over pedestrians like they was bowling pins!”

Swede also insisted on driving the clown car as well. This required some tricky maneuvering around guy wires and ring curbs in a Ford Pinto that was crammed to the gunwales with squirming clown bodies. Since I was one of the taller, lankier clowns, I got in first and had the  other clowns pile on top of me. I still have a lingering claustrophobia from that uncomfortable position.The interior of the vehicle was gutted to accommodate ten clowns, so Swede had to sit on a small wooden block, hunched over the wheel like a cathedral gargoyle. The one time he relinquished the wheel to producing clown Mark Anthony the car ran aground on a shoal of elephant tubs until a crew of roustabouts could push us back onto the track.   

Mabel packed a lunch for Swede each day, consisting of a liverwurst sandwich on dark rye bread and a banana. Swede loved liverwurst but hated bananas; Mabel made him take it in his lunch for the potassium it contained -- or, as she pronounced it, ‘protassimum.’

“Make sure he eats that banana!” she’d yell at us over the walls of clown alley as Swede came in each day and threw the banana to Prince Paul or Dougie Ashton. “He needs the vitamins and protassimum!”

Mabel refused to ever enter clown alley. The place was traditionally an exclusive male preserve, verboten to all women. That began to change the first season I was on the Ringling show; some of the more bold girlfriends and female reporters came barging in without so much as a by-your-leave, sending clowns scrambling for their bathrobes or jumping frantically behind their trunks. It was finally decided to attach an English handbell on a length of rope to the side of the entrance and insist that all visitors give it a good loud shake before entering. Any female who failed to observe this courtesy was roundly condemned with a chorus of “Ring the bell - Ring the bell!” until she retreated.

When the weather turned cold in the fall prior to the end of the season, Mabel would set up an electric heater in a secluded corner of the arena where Swede could rest between shows, lounging in a folding canvas beach chair and covered with a large sheepskin.  

Swede told me that he met Mabel when he was a young lion tamer. In constant need of raw horse meat to feed his animals, Swede haunted many a butcher shop. One dewy morning in Sheboygan Wisconsin he walked into a prosperous German butcher shop and deli, redolent of sour salami, Bismarck herring, and limburger cheese, to inquire about equestrian protein. The proprietor agreed to provide enough meat for the hungry cats and sent his daughter Mabel out to the lot later that day with several large bulky packages wrapped in brown paper rapidly deteriorating from the dripping blood. She stuck around, fascinated by Swede and his career, becoming part of the curious crowds in each town that circus folk refer to as ‘lot lice.’ When the show left town a week later Mabel came along, now married to Swede by a local Justice of the Peace. Her parents were not the usual small town bigots when it came to consorting with circus people, and they welcomed the hasty nuptials. Swede says that even as a young bride Mabel had an enormous appetite, so perhaps mom and dad were relieved to be shut of a daughter who probably threatened to eat so deeply into their inventory. They gifted the honeymooners with a barrel of pigs knuckles in brine and a large wheel of Emmentaler cheese. The well-fed couple remained together for forty-five years before the Grim Reaper came for Mabel, and then, a few months later, escorted Swede back to her in those Grassy Lots beyond.  

Prince Paul, an emphatic bachelor, once looked at the two of them quietly sitting together on the ring curb between shows, then turned to me with a thought:

“Y’know, Schmutz Finger, marriage is a sucker’s game -- but those two make it work somehow.”

Then Prince turned and stumped heavily back to clown alley, singing to himself an odd tune that began “I’ve got a customer for your face . . . “

Kyle Mazza

A kid and a question succeed

In getting the President’s heed.

Must ev’ry reporter

Become a spoil sporter?

There’s room for a gentler breed.

Auditioning for Clown Alley in British Columbia

I’ve never felt there was anything wrong with Clown College students who didn’t get a contract with The Greatest Show On Earth. As I’ve shared before, the main reason I was given a contract was because I was thin and of medium height -- so I would fit into all of the expensive show costumes for the gorgeous production numbers Ringling was famous for. It was not because of my talents and skills as a clown. Those came later -- if they ever came at all. The fact of the matter is I know many students from Clown College who were much more talented and versatile than me who never got a contract. Most of them still managed to do all right.

39 years ago I took my clowning skills on a Canadian tour with the Garden Circus. There were two other clowns with me -- Walter and Wayne. They were both Clown College grads who did not get contracts. So they formed a team and worked a lot of Shrine dates in Canada. Their wardrobe was fantastic; they must have cornered the market on zircons. They outshone Liberace at his gaudiest! At the beginning of the season they were a tad bitter and sarcastic towards me, the Big Shot who had actually clowned with Ringling Brothers. But as the season wore on and the roads got rougher and the towns got smaller, they saw that I was not a diva and didn’t expect any special treatment. And compared to their Las Vegas wardrobe, my poor weeds were strictly Goodwill. We three put up our trunks under the bleachers in each town, which we shared with Chief Thunderclap -- who did a Slide for Life. In real life Chief Thunderclap was Herbie Slobowsky, from Hoboken. Dressed in full warpath regalia, Herbie literally slid on his feet from the top to the bottom of the longest guy wire inside the tent -- a distance of some 20 yards. By the end of his descent his moccasins began to smoke from the friction. When he jumped on the group after a hair raising descent his wife Ramona would let off a full shotgun blast, which made the audience jump to their feet and yell their heads off. Not surprisingly, his feet were always red and swollen. He went through a tin of J.R. Watkins Skin Care Gift Set, Head To Toe, Hand Cream/Hand & Body Lotion/Foot Cream/Lip Balm every week.

Walter and Wayne had all the props to perform several traditional clown gags, so I really didn’t have to bring along anything but my costume and musical saw. We did the doctor gag -- which has more variations than a Haydn concerto. In our version most of the action took place between the patient, Walter, and the nurse, Wayne. My role as doctor was basically to stand around and get hit with a giant thermometer from time to time. Walter and Wayne liked to play it dicey, so most of the comic byplay involved the balloon bust of the nurse, which kept moving around Wayne’s body in an erratic fashion -- finally exploding from an ill-placed hypodermic needle. When the ringmaster intervened to say “Give that patient another shot” I pulled out a revolver and started shooting blanks at the patient as we all ran off. Not exactly Chaplinesque, but the Canadians ate it up -- especially when the balloon bosoms popped.

As part of my contract I was obliged to come up with some publicity stunts for the show as we went up and down British Columbia. The lush green mountains and boisterous Pacific coast were enchanting to behold, but the breathtaking environment seemed to breed a hardy pioneer stock that didn’t like to spend money on circus tickets. As the season progressed we were visited more and more often by that dreaded couple, Mister and Mrs. Rows. Long rows of empty bleacher seats, that is. Finally Larry, the owner of the show, came to me with grim news. Either I come up with some kind of publicity that would start filling the bleachers again or I could pack my trunk and head back to the States. We had just finished playing Kamloops, which I thought was so lovely I seriously considered relocating my family there when the season was over, and I did not want to miss the rest of the tour. The cost of living was a third less than what we were struggling with in Minnesota at the time. The fishing, I might add, was beyond spectacular. I had only to drop a line, even in a birdbath, and a second later I’d be reeling in a brookie.

So I spent the night cogitating, dredging the old cerebrum for something to boost attendance in Greenwood, the next town we played. At last I hit on a stratagem from Carson & Barnes. When their attendance began to sag they would put ads in the newspaper seeking employees for the circus, to start immediately. This always brought a huge crowd of curious folks out to the lot, just to see if there were really any job openings. There always were -- as candy butchers. Concession sales always paid for itself, and more -- so if some of the townies wanted to sign on to sell cotton candy or balloons they were more than welcome. The side effect, so to speak, of this was that most everyone that came out to see about the jobs stayed and bought tickets for the show.

I ran this past Larry and he agreed to spend $50.00 on just such an ad for the local newspaper prior to our arrival.

When we got to Greenwood it was a ghost town; there was no one on Main Street and the stores were closed. Everyone, it turned out, was down at the lot waiting for us -- and waiting for jobs. The place had recently experienced a tremendous financial downturn when the remaining mining companies had all closed up unexpectedly overnight.

Whoops.

We couldn’t very well hire 600 candy butchers, and this crowd was turning surly; they had waited all morning for the chance to apply for a job; now they suspected it was all a come-on (which it was!) Larry was no help whatsoever.

“This was your big idea, Torkildson” he said glumly. “You handle it. I’m going to go lock myself in my AirStream. Good luck.”

And this is where Walter and Wayne showed their true blue Ringling Clown College training. When I told them what we were up against they immediately rallied round and suggested that we hold clown auditions. We’d take a dozen at a time and run them through some rough and ready slapstick to discourage their ambitions. So we invited everyone into the tent, had them sit on the bleachers, and systematically subjected a dozen at a time to the delights of shaving cream pies and how to take a slap. After the first two groups had staggered away, with us calling cheerfully after them “Don’t call us, we’ll call you!” -- the rest of the crowd decided that playing Pagliacci might not be a sound career choice after all. They dispersed to the ticket wagon, as I had hoped and prayed they would, and bought enough tickets to give us straw houses for both the matinee and evening show. Plus a reporter from the CBC showed up, having gotten wind of our 'employment fair.' She interviewed a lot of townies and was about to interview me when Larry, ever the showboater, leaped out of his Airstream to give her a guided tour of the lot.

And we did pick up one young man who took our shaving cream pies and blows to his chops in stride, declaring that he was ready to put up with anything in order to learn to be a clown. He stayed with the show for exactly two weeks -- at which time his girlfriend showed up to bring him back to their love nest in Greenwood. His choice was simple -- continue on as an ill-paid unappreciated amateur or start having sex again. The kid had some potential as a clown, and I was sorry to see him go; it would have been nice to have a protege. But our next stop was Nanaimo, where they make exquisite custard and chocolate bars -- so I soon forgot about him and Greenwood.

My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, and I thank you for your support of my mini memoir “Auditioning for Clown Alley in British Columbia.”  

Sandy Weber

Billy Jim Baker

Victor Ruiz

Mike Weakley

Gabriel Romero Sr

Alberto Ramirez

Trevor Whittow

Joe Giordano

Mike Johnson

Leander Finder

Norm Thomas

Paul Dymoke

Jim Aakhus

Laura Lee Vaugh Nadell

Brenden McDaniel

Linda F Vogel Kaplan

David Orr

Kenneth L Stallings

Erik Bartlett

“May the sun never set on your good fortune.”  

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch bought an axe

To give reporters forty whacks.

And when he saw what he had done

He gave his editors forty-one.

The Cook Tent

According to the Ringling clowns I worked with who were veterans of the big top cook tent, the grub served up was always standard meat and potatoes fare, well-cooked, generous, and served on a special set of Arzberg china that John Ringling North had personally ordered from Bavaria. Breaking a plate would cost a performer five dollars back in the Depression days of the 1930’s. But on the other hand, the staff ate free -- three times a day.

By the time I arrived on the scene, the Ringling cook tent was no more. True, they had the pie car -- but you had to pay for your meals. And there was no al fresco ambience.

I had to wait a number of years until I worked for Carson & Barnes as their ringmaster to experience the real deal of a cook tent.

The cook tent's blue and white striped siding was attached to a roach coach type truck that prepared and dispensed 2 meals each day; lunch and dinner. Since the show moved every single morning at 5:30 a.m., there was no breakfast as such. The cooking staff, which doubled as trash pickup and truck drivers, merely set out stale donuts and instant coffee on several rickety card tables. Biting into one of those ancient crullers was like chewing on cardboard sprinkled with powdered sugar. However, I rarely had any appetite to speak of that early in the morning -- so I did not feel compelled to grumble.

Luncheon was served promptly at 12, or as soon as the big top was up and the rigging set inside.

Initially I thought my status as the ringmaster would allow me to step up front for my meal.

How wrong I was!

The roustabouts, those unappreciated drudges who put up the tent each morning and tore it down again each night, had first call at the cook tent. I was politely told to step aside until they had all been served.

After they had been served I once again stepped up for my meal, only to be told once more to cool my heels.

Now the clowns, already in makeup, were to be fed, since they had to go out well before the show started to sell coloring books.

Then it was my turn, along with the rest of the no-accounts.

Since most of the workers and most of the acts were Hispanic, lunch leaned heavily towards beans, corn, and tortillas. There was also a generous tub of pickled jalapeno peppers, sliced carrots in vinegar, and fresh radishes with the stalks still on. I learned quickly that radish leaves are just as good to eat as the radish itself -- something Latinos have known all along but we gringos have yet to learn.

Meat empanadas were also a mainstay of lunch. I had never eaten one prior to working at Carson & Barnes, although I smugly considered myself a world traveler. The cooks did 'em up right. The crust was light and flaky and they didn't skimp on the savory pork or beef filling.

The rule on Seconds was simple; when the cook yelled "Que quiere mas?" there was a mass stampede up the metal steps to the truck window for the leftovers. It was not unlike a soccer riot, and I did not wish to risk being trampled to death -- so I usually had some beef jerky or beer nuts stashed away in my little room in the back of the electricity truck if I still felt peckish.

I also functioned as the on-lot publicity man, so whenever a newspaper reporter came to do a story I would give them a tour of the circus lot, including the cook tent. This turned out to be a good deal, because the cooks were instructed by Barbara Byrd herself that any time a reporter visited the cook tent she wanted lots of green salad to be served as well as the regular starchy provender. I took advantage of this ukase by casually informing the cooks almost every day that I expected a reporter from the Times Picayune to pop up during the lunch hour. This got me some much-needed greenery in my diet, although eventually the cooks caught on to my stratagem and started demanding the name of the so-called reporter that was coming over to sample their wares.

Dinner was much the same as lunch, served between the matinee and evening performances. The big difference being there would also be a hearty soup or stew and cake and pie for dessert. All meals were served on metal trays, the same kind the military uses, and after you were done you took your tray and utensils behind the truck and slid them into a large soapy trough for later washing.

No one ever went hungry who worked for Carson & Barnes.

Dining al fresco under the blue and white stripes held vast charms for me most of the time. I could look out past the tent flaps onto the circus lot, where elephants swayed, tigers snarled in their cages, and the pennants at the top of the main tent snapped in the breeze. And I always found the combined smell of manure, cotton candy, straw, and cumin to be exhilarating.

The only hair in the soup, so to speak, was when it rained hard and blew fast -- at those times the cook tent was a leaky, soggy hellhole. The food turned cold as fast as it was served out, and there were boggy holes to circumvent on your way to your table if you wished to avoid sodden feet and a sprained ankle.

And of course, in the great tradition of mud shows everywhere, during the last few weeks of the season, when the cooks finally realized that they would be unemployed pretty soon, they began to skimp on everything so they could feather their nests for the winter. That's when the food became all canned, all beans, and practically inedible. I had been forewarned that this would happen, so I always located the nearest Subway and began getting most of my meals there.

I was ringmaster on Carson & Barnes for only one season -- a Byrd family nephew had been groomed to supplant me. But that didn't dismay me; at least I'd eaten well. And with the circus, that's about all you can ever hope for.

A great big ‘Danke’ to readers who are supporting this clown mini-memoir:

Keith Holt

Veronica Renee

Sandy Weber

Mike Weakley

Victor Ruiz

Joe Giordano

Beth Grimes

Jim Aakhus

Linda F Vogel Kaplan

Brandon Deloney

Andrew Fronczak

Leandra Finder

“May all your detours be vacations”

Remembering Ringmaster Harold Ronk

One evening back in 1972 a young Ringling clown snuck up on ringmaster Harold Ronk, who was chatting affably with Rhubarb Bob, the assistant performance director, and clipped a large yellow balloon to the split of his red sequined tailcoat. The balloon waved languidly in the popcorn-scented air, promising a big laugh when Mr. Ronk strode out to begin the show with that celebrated phrase “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages . . . “ But before Ronk stepped out of the shadows the ever vigilant Charlie Baumann, performance director and tiger trainer, caught sight of the offending globe and hastily popped it with the tip of his glowing cigarette. This startled Ronk momentarily, but saved him from becoming a victim of clown alley’s penchant for japery.

Baumann then cast his eyes round about until they landed on me, innocently chewing a Van Holten’s Big Papa Dill Pickle. The glare he directed at me would have felled a lesser jester, but I merely waved at him with my briney cuke and sauntered back into clown alley to get ready for the opening number.

Ronk never inquired about this little incident; it was not in his nature to notice petty annoyances or be overborne by the vagaries of circus life. Like the Post Office, neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night could stay him from his appointed rounds of bombastic announcement and mellifluous song.  He favored corny tunes, warbled in a treacly tenor, and with great conviction and enunciation. Forty-five years later I still catch myself humming his signature song: “This is the happiest place on earth to be; come be the happiest child on earth with me!”

Harold Ronk came from Peoria, Illinois. He took voice lessons as a child and began his singing career with Sig Romberg doing Viennese schmalz. According to his obituary in the New York Times, he thought he was auditioning for a Broadway play when he sang for John Murray Anderson, the Ringling Brothers producer. When he was offered the job of circus ringmaster he shrugged his shoulders and took it, saying “A stage is a stage.”  He held that stage for 30 years.

Like Lou Jacobs and Merle Evans, Harold Ronk had become a copper-bottomed Circus Institution by the time I worked with him. He had, in a sense, tenure. He was part of the warp and woof of Ringling Brothers, and conducting the show without his Dudley Doright intonations was as unthinkable as giving arms to the Venus de Milo. It would be an artistic sacrilege.

But Ronk did not think of himself as irreplaceable.  When my clown pal Tim Holst approached him early in the season to audition as his understudy, Ronk was not in the least bit offended that a lowly comic wanted the position. Holst had a rich tenor voice, and, more important, he had picked up a dinner jacket and tuxedo pants at a Goodwill Store. They smelled of mothballs and Lilac Vegetal, but they gave Holst a ready-made ringmaster look.  Ronk heard him out, singing a few stanzas from Victor Herbert’s “Toyland.” Ronk gave him the position, making sure that Holst understood there was no extra pay involved; he also gifted him with a bright pink cumerbund from his own immense collection of waist wrappers.

After that, Ronk would occasionally inform Charlie Baumann that he felt a cold coming on and would not be in for the Saturday morning show -- let the understudy have a crack at it. And since Baumann, for all his high and mighty airs, was NOT a Circus Institution, he had to put up with Ronk’s desire to catch a few extra Z’s. But Baumann was not about to let a member of the clown alley lumpenproletariat flout circus dignity and tradition. On those special Saturday mornings, when the rest of the clowns would straggle into the alley around nine, blurry-eyed and blasphemous, Baumann would show up and crisply command Holst to come with him. He insisted that Holst dress as ringmaster in his own solitary dressing room, as befitted a member of circus royalty. But the red carpet was only rolled out on a temporary basis. As soon as Ronk showed up for the matinee performance, Holst was bounced from his private dressing room right back into clown alley. He didn’t mind. Anything to postpone putting on that cold, greasy makeup at nine in the morning was well worth it!

Ronk paid no attention to the clowns, either onstage or off. And he rarely socialized with anyone else on the show. His contract stipulated that he be provided with a hotel suite in every town we played; not for him the gritty train or a frowzy fifth-wheeler. Rhubarb Bob acted as his factotum, sharing in the luxurious lodgings and luncheons in return for taking care of his dry cleaning and acting as his social secretary. Whenever there was a Gilbert and Sullivan Society in town, Ronk could be found warbling renditions of “A Wandering Minstrel I” for their delectation.

Ronk was rather vain about his wavy chestnut hair. He rinsed it in apple cider vinegar each morning, then gave it one hundred strokes with a boar bristle brush. That’s what Holst told me after he had been invited up to Ronk’s suite one morning to go over some understudy notes. As Ronk aged he refused to let any silver strands loiter among the gold; he spent all his time between shows in his dressing room, having Rhubarb Bob pluck out any unwelcome reminders of advancing age one at a time.

My fondest memory of Harold Ronk is the night he introduced Merv Griffin as an honorary ringmaster to the crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center. Although Griffin came across as a folksy and genial talk show host on TV, when he was waiting backstage with the circus cast for his intro he managed to snarl at clowns, roustabouts, and showgirls in a very Equal Opportunity way -- treating everyone with the exact same disdain.

Ronk took Griffin by the arm and escorted him out into the spotlight. The band blared a few chords, and Ronk said “Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all ages -- we are proud this evening to introduce our honorary ringmaster . . . Mike Douglas!”

There were rousing cheers from the audience as Merv Griffin was handed the microphone. He managed to splutter a strangled greeting and then stalked off. Ronk, not knowing or not caring about the faux pas he had just committed, blithely carried on with his duties.

  

The questions of Jesus:

But what went ye out for to see?

I went unto a seminar, to seek the victory

Over all the awful things that come so oft to me.

But all I heard convinced me that the man upon the stage

Was helping no one but himself unto a handsome wage.

Past burning plains and torrents swift I passed in search of peace;

To gurus and mahatmas I plied questions without cease.

But all I got for my long trips to all these sages wise

Was that they scratched themselves and yawned like all the other guys.

At last I bowed my head to pray for guidance unalloyed

with greed or pride or anything with which these people toyed.

I did not travel from my room that day, but wisdom came

To me, as it will come to all -- by calling on God’s name.   

Ronald McDonald in Clown Alley

In his autobiography Clown Alley Bill Ballantine tells of how the Ringling clowns had fallen on hard times during the Sixties, their walkarounds nothing more than advertisements for Kellog’s Cereal and Silly Putty. He rejoiced when Irvin Feld took over and got rid of such travesties.

This disdain for commercialism in clown alley was still strong when I joined up twelve years later. So when Art Ricker the show publicist worked out a deal with the local McDonald's franchise in Nashville to have a Ronald McDonald in clown alley and asked for one of the First of Mays to volunteer to wear the makeup for a week we initially balked. No one wanted to stoop to such depths of depravity. But when Ricker threw in an extra twenty-five dollar bonus for whoever would do it, Anchor Face immediately stepped up. The quisling.

Many a lip curled in disdain when he put on the McDonald’s makeup and costume, but somehow he managed to survive our collective scorn and was twenty-five bucks richer than the rest of us at the end of the week.

A few years later the same thimblerig operation was put over on the Red Unit clown alley, only this time the Ronald proxy was none other than the inimitable Peter Pitofsky  --  he who had once put on a green leotard, painted all his exposed skin green, and run through the audience during come in yelling “I’m a pickle! Who wants to put me on their hotdog?”  

I got the story second-hand, but apparently Peter-as-Ronald somehow acquired a Burger King cardboard crown to wear with his Ronald McDonald outfit. No one noticed the first few days, but then one of the local franchise owners spied the offending headpiece and had kittens. Large, screaming, clawing kittens. Ronald was never allowed in clown alley again after that.

As irony would have it, many years later when I needed a clown job to keep my family together my old pal Steve Smith, the Little Guy, arranged for me to interview with Aye Jaye -- the man who ran the Ronald McDonald program for the McDonald’s corporation. Aye Jaye was a Midwestern Falstaff; when I met with him in Milwaukee he took me out on the town for a series of feasts that left me feeling like the Hindenberg dirigible, but didn’t slow Aye Jaye down at all. He made free with a Chinese wine he called Wan Fu, guzzling it from a porcelain bottle like spring water. He had a bevy of lithesome blonde assistants that would have turned the head of a eunuch. Luckily, I was there strictly to schmooze him up and get an assignment to one of the lucrative Ronald McDonald regional franchise positions, so had no eyes for alluring pulchritude. My zeal was rewarded with a one year contract with the McDonald’s franchise out of Wichita, Kansas. I would travel the Sunflower State touting hamburgers. The salary turned out to be so handsome that we bought our first house in Wichita. It didn’t have a basement, and when the first tornado warning of the spring arrived we found out that the storm cellar in the back yard had been built too close to the sewer line; the seepage was not nostril friendly. Other than that, we settled into our new life with gratitude and contentment.

As the corporate mascot I and my family were allowed to dine for free at any McDonald’s in Kansas. My wife and I thought of it as a heavenly bonanza -- no more cooking and messes at home! But my children have never forgiven me, now that they are grown up and brainwashed, for the unending procession of Egg McMuffins, Big Macs, french fries, and Chicken McNuggets they were fed at a tender age. Today whenever one of them has to go to the doctor for something, they invariably notify me of the dire consequences of my ersatz parental abuse. I doubt I’d be hearing this much vituperation if I’d raised ‘em on beer and pretzels!

I only worked about six days a month. Not because there was nothing for me to do, but because the different franchise owners were an ornery bunch of former farmers and oil rig wildcatters who had bought into the McDonald’s franchise early, when they were cheap, and now had more money than they knew what to do with; consequently they argued with each other at their board meetings about how to save money, and forgot all about giving me work assignments.

It just so happened that the show Ronald McDonald was supposed to put on for the kiddies had been scripted by none other than Steve Smith, and was called The Big Red Shoe Review. It featured a lot of magic tricks, like linking rings, which I found impossible to do, especially since I had to wear thick yellow gloves. As with the unicycle in Clown College, I found my skills as a magician woefully inadequate. So I snuck my musical saw and some pantomime bits into the Ronald McDonald act, to replace the harder prestidigitation, and no one was any the wiser.

Since my contract gave me an assistant, paid by the franchise owners, I used my wife Amy -- keeping the income in the family. And since all our kids were still below school age, we took ‘em with us to every appearance. At the stores they were happy to sit still stuffing their faces while Daddy did his funny stuff. But when I visited schools or libraries or ribbon cutting ceremonies, the little ones grew quickly bored and developed an amazing wanderlust. They could be found in boiler rooms throwing janitors into the furnace or in civic flowerbeds cutting a large swath of hydrangea to give to Mommy. And the littlest one was still nursing, so when Amy would hear a lusty cry during my show she would simply desert me and go take care of business. I didn’t mind her leaving me in the lurch like that; I just pulled out my old Irish tin whistle and tootled on it until she got back.

The crowds were happy to see me and the franchise owners, when they could stop bickering long enough to visit with me, seemed pleased with my work. So I was thunderstruck when they did not renew my contract at the end of the year.

I immediately called Aye Jaye to tell him the outrageous news, but he was far from surprised or sympathetic.

“I knew this would happen” he told me over the phone.

“Why? What did I do wrong? They never once complained to me about anything! Did they talk to you about me?”

“No, but I talked to them. I told them not to rehire you.”

I was sure I had not heard him right. I asked him to repeat what he had just said.

“I was the one told them not to rehire you. You weren’t following proper corporate procedure.”

I thought he meant the changes I had made in the Big Red Shoe Review, and started to explain. But he cut me off.

“It’s not any of that. You forgot about my birthday.”

“What?”

“I always get a very nice present from each of my Ronald McDonalds on my birthday. You disrespected me and the company by not sending something. After all, I know how much you make and that you can afford to be generous.”

This was a shakedown, pure and simple. Aye Jaye expected a kickback. I was on the point of finding out just how much of a birthday present he needed to get back into his good graces when my good sense dissolved in an eruption of indignation.

“You go to blazes, you piss ant!” I yelled at him, and hung up.

Eventually I found work out on the road with another circus again, but not before we lost the house in Wichita. I never told Amy about my conversation with Aye Jaye; I was afraid she’d kill me for putting our family in such financial straits when a little toadying would have saved my job.

On the plus side, I’ve always been rather proud of myself for coming up with the phrase ‘piss ant’ as part of my last words to Aye Jaye.

From the New York Times:  The United States has long been the dream destination for many Latin American migrants, whether fleeing poverty, political unrest, natural disaster or violence. But now a growing number of migrants are putting down roots in Mexico, legally or illegally, instead of using it as a thruway to the United States.

Del Norte no longer appeals

To those who must take to their heels

To flee the unrest

Of their little nest,

Cuz Trump does not share their ideals.

The Questions of Jesus

Believe ye that I am able to do this?

No miracle without belief can happen in this sphere

Where so many are doubting and are paralyzed by fear.

Afraid to even think that God will intercede again,

The clerics and agnostics can say nothing good to men.

But I believe there’s more than what I see before my eyes.

I believe that but for God my being shrinks and dies.

I believe that timely aid and courage, not remorse,

Come to those who follow fast the Savior’s noble course.

And if some miracles are small, so small I cannot see,

Like microbes they are potent and can change my history!