June 29, Merrimac.
As I interviewed Father Jerry yesterday we came upon the subject of the prejudice circus people suffer in the eyes of society outside the circus, or "townies," as we say. It reminded me of several episodes I had decided to brush off over the past months, and one in particular just last week in Berkley.
The circus was next to the library so the kids and I went to our favorite hangout beside the whoop as soon as we could. Sister Jo was there too, using the internet. When she saw me she smiled and whispered that the librarians were not so happy about our being here, and indeed they were as unwelcoming as they could be short of being rude. Then as I was talking to a Mom while her kids and mine played together in the children's section, the instant I mentioned I was from the circus she turned around and left so fast I didn't have time to realized she was gone.
There was also the time a few weeks ago when a post office clerk in a small Maryland mountain village, unaware that I was from the circus (the point exactly, isn't it?) told me to be careful because there were "going to be a lot of people today," hinting that we had better protect ourselves, and presumably our properties, from "those" people. I felt strangely violated, yet incredulous.
Father Jerry mentioned ignorance as the main culprit for this widespread prejudice. Most probably it is, hand in hand with ignorance, a distrust, sometimes even a fear, of traveling people of all kinds, the Gypsies of Eastern Europe, the carnival and circus people of Western Europe, the nomads of Northern Africa, as ancient and ingrained as the traditions of traveling people themselves.
The eternal other amongst us has many faces and it is always our own (I is another, said Rimbaud, the French poet.) It looks back at us from the other side of the world, the other side of the street, the other side of the prison walls; it is the mad, the homeless, it is the migrant, the circus hand; it is me. Circus people, with their generous, suspicious cultural and ethnic diversity, their bohemian mobility, and the unimaginable feats they perform, exemplify that otherness, layer after layer, to picture-perfection.
They also exemplify its inherent contradiction, its absurdity, our own folly.
Mariana and Gordo walking up to the altar.
I is another.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
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4 comments:
Hello Valerie:
Your article on how towners treat circus people hit home to me. One time my calliope truck needed a new muffler. I pulled into one of these franchised muffler shops, and the attendant motioned me on to the rack. I had a Franzen Bros. Circus License plate on the front of the truck, he took one look at it, and said sorry this truck rack is broken, and we can't fix your truck.! I was suspicious, so i backed out and parked in a Motel parking lot accross the street from this shop, you can imagine my slow burn, when 5 minutes later another truck the same size as mine pulled onto the rack, and it raised the truck into the air perfectly! Little did the shop owner know that i had CASH to pay him in full with upon completion of the work. Some kinder soul down the road got my business instead. Hang in there Valerie, these towners are never going to change in a million years.
ROD PRINGLE
Hey Valerie,
I'm afraid it is my fault; I go around stealing and ravaging in every town.
Sorry.....
Hi Valerie,
A very good article on towners and many still remember how it was when a circus came to town. Not all shows were what was called Sunday school shows. Many had gambling, the squeez before entering the main tent, etc.
Dailey Bros railroad show was famous for it's ways of gyping the public which brough and end to them as they burned Canada so much the people would not go the circus.
Ringling always prided themselves as a Sunday school show.
Not all folks are like that as to what they think about show folks.
As a real circus fan I have always made it a point to help shows folks in any way at no cost to them.
When you made the jump to Brownsville, Texas I was the one that was asked by your circus to go back and pull all the arrows so the circus would not get in trouble with the city. Which I gladly did as always glad to help out a circus.
What is the old saying as do not let one bad apple spoil the bunch.
Harry Kingston
CFA in Texas
Darn, Steve, I should have known.
...
Not one bad apple, many prejudices, and all of us harbor them one way or another, just a part of humanity. it is always good to see the bad parts getting better though, as they do undoubtedly every day in every part of the world. I'd rather see the glass half full.
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