"The son of my heart."

September 15, Longmont.

Jim, Circus Chimera's owner, calls Carol Stone "Mom, " even though she's not his biological mother. Carol has silver hair, and she is all softness and roundness, like the generosity and tenderness she seems to wrap around you. This is a small window on her story.
One day about four years ago Carol and Gail decided to hit the road. They were high school friends in Tilton, New Hampshire but had not stayed in touch. "Life took over," says Carol. A chance meeting reconnected them after Carol came back to New Hampshire. Both had recently lost their husbands and felt like it was time to fulfill that dream of traveling.
Between the two of them and the few trips they took beforehand they've been in all 48 states. They travel in Carol's car, with Gail's miniature Schnauzer, Bandit, in the back, stopping at whatever motel they see when it's time to fold the day. Their trip is open to improvisation, to the suggestions of a stranger met on the road. "We U-turn a lot," says Carol. But two things they always try to do: go visit Waverly United Methodist Church in Waverly, Tennessee, where Carol went when she was taking care of her husband, who was affected by Alzheimer's and passed away in 2002, and catching Jim, wherever the circus is.
Jim was the first one of some ten teenagers Carol and her husband, George, welcomed into their home over the years. They lived on a 200-acre dairy farm in Tilton, purchased by George's grandfather in 1840, and had two sons of their own. "It was a unique environment," says Carol, "there was lots of room, and always lots of work, lots of music, George loved music, and we had strong faith."
Carol met Jim when she was working part-time at a department store to complete the farm's income and the manager asked her to look for a kid to help around the store. She called the high school and they sent Jim. "He came to the farm and I put him to work," she recalls. He didn't leave until he was in college, later meeting D.R. Miller, owner of the Carson and Barnes Circus, and starting his circus career under his wing.
Before Carol left the trailer she turned around and added, "He's the son of my heart."