Memories of Prince Paul: The Hunt for Celery Tonic.

Prince was one of the 'Little People' -- a true dwarf, with a head and torso of regular adult size and legs and arms stunted to child size. He had a gruff baritone voice, much employed in cursing and trotting out such odd expressions as "Cease this constant bickering!" and "Are you a face sitter?" When in an expansive mood, he would warble his own version of Broadway show tunes, such as "I've Got a Customer for Your Face". 

It took something special for Prince Paul to remember a First of May's real name. He called most of us 'Heim Potz" that first season -- an appellation that has no etymological precedent in any language I have ever come across. 

For me, however, he found a unique name that inaugural season on the Ringling Blue Unit back in 1971: "Schmutz Finger". It's a German/Yiddish hybrid that means . . . well, you can go look it up yourself -- it has several meanings, all of them coarsely concerning a person's hygiene. 

I really don't know why he chose to nail that moniker onto me; he rarely said two words to me during the entire day for the first six months of the season. Frankly, I was a little bit afraid of him. He allowed no one to ever insult his dignity as a human being -- by that I mean that if anyone tried to lift him up like a child or make fun of his stature (which, considering this was clown alley, happened often enough) he grabbed his wood and canvas camp stool and pitched it with deadly accuracy at the offender's head. 

But a thaw of sorts occurred between him and I one summer day when his New York Times was not delivered to the top of his trunk an hour before come-in. Prince paid Rigger Mortis, one of the roustabouts, to buy and deliver the New York Times every single day. But that day Rigger forgot for some reason. Prince was incensed, storming up and down clown alley, turning the place into a Turkish bath with his steaming invective. Just by chance I happened to have bought the newspaper myself earlier that day, so I shyly laid it on his trunk. I hadn't even looked at it yet, so it was all crispy and folded neat as a pin. Prince recognized my gesture with a brief jerk of his head, then put on his half moon glasses and immersed himself in the paper while sucking on a Dr. Tung's Perio Stick. 

After the show he beckoned me over to his trunk to talk.

"What's your name, Schmutz Finger?" he asked.

"Tim. Tim Torkildson." I answered.

"What the . . . ? Tortle-twaddle, you say?" He shook his head in disbelief at my uncouth last name, and I knew I would remain Schmutz Finger to him for the rest of the season. 

"Listen" he continued, "I gotta get a new schlepper for my New York Times -- I can't depend on these #%%*#** working men anymore. You wanna get it for me or not? I hafta have it here at least an hour before the come-in. I pay for the paper, of course, and you get an extra five bucks a week for doing it."

He folded his arms and stared at me. It didn't seem like a difficult task, and I could certainly use the extra five bucks, so I said sure, and added --

"Can I get the paper when you're done with it each day?"

"Sure, kid -- why not?"  

So began my apprentice schlepperhood for Prince Paul, one of the bedrocks of clowning on the Ringling Show. 

All went well that first week. When the eagle flew -- meaning when the show paid off -- Prince made a great show of unfolding and smoothing out a five dollar bill so he could hand it over to me. 

"Keep up the good work, Schmutz Finger" he said with the lordly air of one born to command churls like myself. Resisting the urge to bow, or at least bring a knuckle up to my forelock, I quickly stuffed the money into the grouch bag I kept hanging around my neck (and yes, the grouch bag is where Groucho Marx got his nickname from -- it's a leather pouch performers hung around their necks to keep money and other valuables from developing legs and walking out of sundry dressing rooms in Vaudeville and clown alleys in the circus).

But then, as inevitably happens in these terse memoirs of mine, complications set in.

One day, as I was headed out to pick up the Times for Prince he stopped me at the curtained entrance to clown alley and said "Hey, pick me up a celery tonic while you're out, will ya? Thanks."

I nodded and left, only to halt in my tracks ten minutes later just as I got to the newsstand to ask myself 'What in the Sam Hill is a celery tonic?' 

They make tonic out of celery? Not in Minnesota they don't! 

I nodded to myself slyly -- a wild goose chase, eh? Well, Prince wasn't going to catch me with his snipe hunt! 

I bought the Times, then on my way back stopped at a grocery store for a bunch of radishes and a small carton of milk.

Just before going into the alley I opened the milk carton, dumped the radishes into it, then closed it up and gave it a mighty shake. 

I walked smugly into clown alley and laid Prince's paper on top of his trunk. Then spoke the fatal words:

"Sorry, Prince, they were all out of tonic of celery -- but they did have a radish milkshake, so here you are!" I placed the dripping carton on his trunk, next to the paper.

The next thing I knew I was prone on the cement floor, with Prince's camp stool next to me. 

As my wits cleared I could hear Prince spouting fearful imprecations at me while Levoi Hipps, the boss clown, held him back.

"Wha happen, huh?" I managed to slur.

By now the entire alley was forming a circle around my supine shape, laughing uproariously. When Levoi got Prince calmed down, he sauntered over to me and kindly explained that Prince had wanted a Dr. Brown's Celery Tonic -- an actual carbonated beverage flavored with celery that was popular on the East Coast. 

Once the little birdies stopped chirping and circling my head I went over to Prince to apologize.

"Think nothing of it, kid" he replied magnanimously. "Everybody makes mistakes -- remember Hitler?" 

Levoi Hipps brought Prince his New York Times after that.

(And if you're interested, they still sell Celery Tonic around the New York City area -- it's called Cel-Ray. I've tried it, and it's sure not worth getting clonked on the head with a camp stool!)

 

The Decayed Olive Tree

Jacob 5:3 -- "For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to decay."

Am I, then, like that olive tree -- now tame and all decayed:
Is my fruit bitter to the taste, my harvest too delayed?
Have I repaid my Master's toil and nourishment so great
by turning wild and heedless and becoming second-rate?
Tis easy to be twisted and produce a wormy fruit;
 O Lord, help me to prune away my sins down to the root!

The Nudist

The nudist poses little threat to morals or devotion;
they spend most of their private time applying lots of lotion.
They congregate on beaches like a flock of penguins hunting
for a bit of herring, without using any bunting.
The sun is cruel upon their skins, and leaves 'em looking like
a withered pippin or perhaps five miles of bad turnpike.
If you would be a nudist you must heed this one command;
be careful how you place yourself upon the burning sand!

Am I remembered with contempt . . . ?

Jacob 4:3 -- "Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents."

Am I remembered with contempt by those who are my seed?
Do they perhaps from my own DNA wish to secede?
I felt the same at times about my own progenitors;
that they were founts of ignorance, and irritating bores. 
I'm doing all the best I can, as did my parents too.
I only hope my kids will learn to take a kindly view! 

Clellan Card, alias Axel Torgeson!

My role model as a tyke growing up in Minneapolis always was, and will always be, Clellan Card, in his role as Axel Torgeson on his TV kiddie show, Axel and His Dog.

In his role as Scandihoovian paterfamilias to a mangy crew of a dog and a cat (plus, later on, the totally normal, and thus totally irrational, Carmen the Nurse), Axel was a jolly hooligan when it came to mangling the English language. The way he could draw out and provide startling innuendo to his word for a cat -- "pyoo-see-gat"  tickled me as a kid, and now, as I think back on it as a so-called sophisticated adult, causes me to grin salaciously.
Africa was pronounced "Ah-FREEK-ka".
Other TV kiddie show hosts were silly, but in a serious sort of way -- with some kind of subliminal message included, like be kind to animals or don't be a litter bug. Axel went way beyond silly to a Zone were Rod Serling would have pushed a custard pie into a space alien's face and then dropped his slacks as he did the hootchie-kootchie . . .
Like many another great clown, Axel's character ranged just this side of madness; he inhabited his own world and followed his own agenda, while introducing limited animation cartoons and going to commercials. For me, the fascination was always to wonder when he would finally break out and demolish the fourth wall completely --  running down his audience on a slice of anthropomorphic lutefisk.
Even as a sullen, world-weary teenager, too lazy and self-centered to take out the garbage or shovel the walk, I couldn't help surreptitiously watching Axel crack wise with senile puns and nonsensical yarns that made a shaggy dog story look like a Chihuahua.
He made non-comformity look as innocent, and easy, as a baby grabbing its own toes.
For creating such good-hearted goofiness for so many years, he's my hero!

Have you tried Spezi!

What other people drink in their own countries, I don't care.
But when it comes to soda here they'd better be aware
that we don't cotton to no furrin' stuff like that there Spezi --
prob'ly something cooked up by a crummy crpto-Nezi.
We do not want hibiscus juice or any of that Pschitt
that outlanders consider to be some colossal hit.
Give me Coke or 7-up or even northern Moxie
(though I think it tastes like turpentine mixed with epoxy).
We invented soda water back when drinks were drinks;
anything you import we will just pour down our sinks!

Who Gave Me License to Condemn

Jacob 3:5 -- "Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you . . . "

Who gave me license to condemn another's life and mind?
Who made me judge of color, hygiene, manner unrefined?
Why should I anger at divergent attitudes to life?
Why should I care if someone plays the tuba, not the fife?
Those who are 'peculiar', who do not my mindset please
may very well be angels I must worship on my knees . . . 

Stiff Necks and High Heads

Jacob 2:13 -- " . . . stiff necks and high heads . . . "

Stiff necks and high heads are symptoms of disease;
a virus that prevents us from collapsing on our knees,
confessing our unsteady ways and lack of high resolve
to constant care of others though some ache it may involve.

The Great Physician has prescribed my daily medication
to loose my neck and bring my head down to its right location:
A broken heart and chastened soul will do more for my health
than Dr. Phil or Oprah or Suze Orman's road to wealth. 

On Seeing Her Again

I dreamed I was immune till I saw her sitting there;
remission was revoked and my wound is still laid bare.
This stigmata will endure while the vault of heaven stands
and the lonely heart can shrivel on the sterile loveless sands.

Comes the kingdom of the Lord

Jacob 1:6 -- And we also had many revelations, and the spirit of much prophecy; wherefore, we knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come.

Comes the kingdom of the Lord and all his rule obey;
the ignorant but honest hearts rejoice in that bright day.

Fulfilled the ancient covenants; veracity revealed.

No longer can the devil's pawns keep Gospel light concealed!

Fall upon your knees, O man, whoever you might be,

to drink the healing waters of the King from Galilee.

A kingdom peaceable and mild shall spread o'er all terrain;

no blood will spill, but only tears because there is no pain.

The Saints who humbly bow their heads and keep a prayer within

have known this kingdom long before it sweeps away all sin.

They welcome it as no surprise, but as their home assured;

where love and kindness are the only currents ever stirred.