House of dreams.

October 13, Ashland.

"We hope to move ourselves in entirely some day.
Preferably before we die."
Greg Foster, philosopher, linguist, humanist, savant, friend extraordinaire.

A trailer with a view.

October 13, Ashland, Missouri (75 miles, Optimist Complex.)

A trailer with a view.

October 12, Montgomery City, Missouri (58 miles, fairgrounds.)

A trailer with a view.

October 11, Winfield, Missouri (32 miles, sports field.)

Missouri drive.

October 9, Warrenton.

Glorious, glorious, morning drive on country roads, and the rising sun, magic hour of the morning, glorious, the painted forest, and sweet hills, curves, like a woman's body, a long morning drive, grateful.
A seventy-plus mile drive through the hills of central Missouri to bypass a broken bridge and a meandering path in banal magnificence.

A trailer with a view.

October 9, Warrenton, Missouri (74 miles, athletic complex.)

A trailer with a view.

October 9, Union, Missouri (77 miles, Jaycee fairgrounds.)

My winners.

October 8, Troy.

In the spirit of the wonderfully fun, fair, all-inclusive and family-friendly Kelly Miller Circus Fourth of July contest, here are my kid costume winners for this year's Halloween extravaganza:
Best sleeping beauty: Gigi (fell asleep before the party started)
Best not-quite-evil doll: Gordo
Best blue baby: Nicolas Fusco
Best Future Amish of America: Argio
Best adorable small creature: Mariana
Best Mummy-to-be: Nathan
Best pop icon potential: Flaco
Best super heroes: Dylan and Nicolas.
And hats off to all.

The party (Tiny and Armando.)

October 8, Troy.

Great party, as Kelly Miller is known for throwing each year, even though it was marred by my Dylan's tears, again.

I am your father.

October 7, Troy.

Halloween.

October 7, Troy.

Men of my heart.

October 7, Troy.

Last time I have to watch my son cry for no reason.
Last Kelly Miller Circus Halloween party for my sons.

A trailer with a view.

October 7, Troy, Illinois (21 miles, next to RP Lumber.)

An uncommon story (part II.)

October 6, Livingston.

All my life I've never stayed in one place for more than two months. Traveling, the idea of traveling, and here, in the United States, traveling from coast to coast, being everywhere.
In the circus in Peru, in the circus the world over since the circus began, life has been a voyage.
In Peru in the eighties traveling with a circus meant jumping on top of a heap of equipment to find a place to sit, and hang on tight. The circus would rent a truck to go from town to town and it was piled high and haphazard with everything that had to be carried, people included. Circus tent, poles, chairs and other equipment piled first, each family's belongings second, and on top of all the stuff one had to find a way to lay down a mattress to sleep on, or just a spot to fit in for the ride.
Fridman: Nothing spelled out "circus" on those trucks but everybody knew it was a circus truck by the mess of it. On short rides you had to just hop in, or rather up. On longer rides in bigger circuses there was someone in charge of accommodating everything and everybody.
I remember once, a truck started to accelerate madly, it had lost his brakes, and my Dad woke me up and told me, "When I say jump, jump." It was dark and you couldn't see where you were, where you were going to jump off into, and the truck was going faster and faster, until there was a hill and it finally stopped of itself. Every trip, there was always something, some accident.
Still, the idea of traveling.
The glut of rules and safety regulations when it came to driving in the United States would astound him for a long time.
But, the similarities: the circus' bad reputation following it like the city's outcasts that caused it in the first place, the runaway hitching a ride for a job and causing trouble, the blame on circus people. To get the city's approval to set the tent, the circus had to send someone to collect signatures from people in the neighborhoods where it wanted to work and only if a majority of these people signed would the show go on. In the small villages of the Amazon jungle things were loser but harder too for the living conditions, and the lack of roads, often, or a sudden river after torrential rains where before there was nothing and you have to cross it, somehow: And we have to go through this way? This way, yes, there is no other.
And: you'd get as far as where your truck could not go on any more, and that was it.
Traveling, the idea of traveling.
Traveling since he can remember. I was born in Peru, somewhere in Peru. Traveling since he was born, the story told, as a boy staying in Lima with aunts to go to school but every Friday as soon as school let out heading for the circus, if it was close enough. Going back to the circus and the traveling, never staying put too long, going back to the circus again and again. In the circus I am like a fish in the ocean.
His parents moving from circus to circus before opening their own, but he was already gone then. Moving from Circo Condor, my circus, to the Las Aguilas Humanas circus, to the Cavallini circus, the Circo Royal Star, the Magic Show Circus and there memories of his dog, named Muere Muere, or Die Die, because he was stepped on and run over by a car but still managed to survive. Memories of life as a boy like any other, crossing the street by himself for the fist time to go to kindergarten, his mother watching, and of not having enough money to buy lunch when everybody else seemed to. Going back to the circus soon enough, and there was everything you'd need.
We had nothing but we had everything. A small world of families, a web of ties.
In Peru in the eighties there were respected big circuses, the American Circus of Ricardo Flores, a legendary figure of the Peruvian circus, an autodidact who started with his wife's transportation business and created one successful circus after another until he got tired of it and went into politics. There were circus families, like the Zapatines, the Balderramas, the Ramirez, the Estefanos, the Cavallinis, and an intricate web of family ties, and most of the families gone now, or drained away by emigration to the U.S., like most of the Cavallini family, now intricately linked to the Carson and Barnes Circus through marriage and business. There were strong shows like Circo Condor, headed by Guillermo Ramirez, or Las Aguilas Humanas, the circus of the human eagles, headed by one of the Balderramas' sons, or the Circo Royal Star, of the Estefano family, where Fridman found work when he left home, and where he stayed for several years before joining the Cavallini clan again, back in Peru after working in the United States, and later still following them when they went back north.
In this country the same web of family ties, stretched over from coast to coast, into constant crossings.
Into another world.

With his sister, Sheyla, and Muere Muere.

Family portraits.

October 6, Livingston.

A trailer with a view.

October 6, Livingston, Illinois (50 miles, Memorial park.)

Bed time around here.

October 5, Greenfield.

Quiet memories.

October 5, Greenfield.

Years ago when I worked in Jacksonville I came to this park to take pictures of a bluegrass concert. It was one of these slow Sunday afternoons of late summer, much like the one when I met Fridman. The music was good, it was one of these easy jobs.
I never thought of it again until we drove in this morning. The memories became finer as I walked out to the pond and saw the trees. Sitting on the grass at the foot of the tall tree there was the sound of the wind in the trees, the leaves falling, and then it died out and there was nothing but my quiet memories and my very loud skin, the roaring of blood in my head, the tinnitus I've had since adolescence and a terrifyingly loud punk-rock concert.
In a cruel irony of nature I am deaf yet full of bottomless noise.
(The circus is full of noise, too, the generator, the music, the crowds, the incessant noise of our lives, but it didn't reach my tree.)

A trailer with a view.

October 5, Greenfield, Illinois (71 miles, Rives Lake.)

Zuzana's room.

October 4, Sherman.

I went to visit my friend Zuzana.
She found a job and bought a house, a beautiful Arts and Crafts house with a big tree in the front yard, she lives there with her son, she chose the small bedroom with the soft violet paint, she left her husband. Good things in her life, the last time I went through Jacksonville, in the spring, just a few months back, she was jobless and torn.

The crowd this morning.

October 4, Sherman.

On his way to school this morning Johnny glanced over at the crowd that had gathered to watch the big top go up.

A trailer with a view.

October 4, Sherman, Illinois (53 miles, Athletic Show grounds.)

Buckner.

October 3, Havana.

A trailer with a view.

October 3, Havana, Illinois (67 miles, business park.)

At the Fuscos.

October 2, Carthage.

A trailer with a view.

October 2, Carthage, Illinois (112 miles, Saddle Club grounds.)

Play (eleven PM.)

October 1, Kewanee.

Dylan invited Nicolas over to his bed to play when I told him that there was going to be light all night and he could turn on his star.

A trailer with a view.

October 1, Kewanee, Illinois (58 miles, corner of 3rd and Elm Streets.)

An uncommon story (part I.)

September 30, Granville.

There was once a boy who loved to ride on top of rickety trucks loaded with a circus tent and his family's belongings. They would travel all over his country, Peru, in South America, to villages in the Amazonian jungle and in the Sierra mountains, to the ocean, to the cities, and pitch the tent for a few days or weeks. He would go to school in the morning and work in the show in the evening. He loved to hide in the darkness beyond the campfire light and listen to the men gossip and talk until the wee hours of the night. He loved to travel and get to be the new kid in town. Then there came a time when he yearned for bigger skies, and he came to the United States. There he worked harder than he ever thought was possible, saved enough to buy a home, and made his way into a new family.
His is a typical American immigrant story. Only he wears makeup and a costume for a living and works thirty-five feet up in the air.
His name is Fridman Torales Rios. He is a circus performer.
Fridman is thirty-three years old, born and raised in what is one of the poorest social group among one of the poorest countries in the world. That he says: In Peru the circus is about the lowest you can get.
And:
I thought everybody's life was like ours: I never thought for a moment that we were exceptional for being in the circus.
A life of hardships, an exceptional life.
But then again, this he says: I had nothing, but I had everything.
There always was food on the table, there always was work, there always was travel, friends, and the circus. A childhood memory, maybe the only one of want: when he was a boy Fridman longed for a bicycle. Not many toys, no toys for Christmas, but a new pair of pants, some new clothes to last you the year. His mother couldn't afford to buy him a bicycle, his father he didn't bother to ask. The circus owner's son had a brand new bicycle, and he so longed for it, and he still remembered that longing years later when he bought a bicycle for his own son.
He made his own toys.
We had nothing but we had everything.
In Peru in the eighties circus life was a camping tent for a home, his family ten feet by ten feet long, richer families as much as twenty feet long, most often home-made, and in the tent one arranged partitions if it was big enough, but the floor was always dirt, and cooking was done on a wood stove, inside a separate tent. There was competition as to who would have the nicest tent, with the nicest decorations, the most windows. Living on his own Fridman soon became well-known for crafting custom tents, and sold them to fellow circus people.
Or simply life was a mattress under the bleachers, under the circus tent, for the city workers, or the odd youth, like Fridman after he left his parents at the age of twelve to go find work on his own.
Like a soldier you carried your mattress on your back, and when the night came you laid out your mattress under the bleachers and there you slept.
That, and you carried your water.
You had to suffer to get water, to bathe, to cook, to do everything, you couldn't waste it. Reminiscing.
Water has always been for me the most precious thing there is, water is sacred.
You had to fetch your daily water at a water truck, or at the river. At the bigger circuses the city would provide a water hose, but in all the others, smaller circuses, one had to carry his own water, bartering a gallon of water for a free entrance to the show at the nearest home, or just buying it. In the Amazon things could be easier, there was often a river where one could wash clothes and bathe. To get power the bigger circuses had generators, like American circuses, and circuses like his father's would get the city's electric company to come and connect them, or would simply send someone to climb the nearest post and steal power. You connected the positive with the negative and here you were.
There I learned about electricity.
We had nothing but we had everything.
(To be continued.)

A trailer with a view.

September 30, Granville, Illinois (38 miles, high school grounds.)

Out-take (Gordo.)

September 29, Marseilles.

Backstage impressions (elephant bath.)

September 29, Marseilles.

Backstage impressions (elephant bath.)

September 29, Marseilles.

Pirate ship.

September 29, Marseilles.

Fridman is working on a pirate ship for Carolyn's dog act next year (the new season's theme revealed.)
Yesterday the kids helped.

Out-take (Cathy.)

September 29, Marseilles.

Out-take (Johnny.)

September 29, Marseilles.

A trailer with a view.

September 29, Marseilles, Illinois (32 miles, 10 acre park.)

Late night snack.

September 28, Channahon.

Last night as a tired, cranky Nicolas was screaming at the top of his lungs Dylan put headphones on so he could eat his ice-cream in peace.

Backstage impressions (continued.)

September 28, Channahon.

Backstage impressons.

September 28, Channahon.

The little tomato plant that did die, and more on inadvertent gardening on the road.

September 28, Channahon.

Back in the spring, in a burst of gardening enthusiasm, I had bought a little tomato plant from an organic grower at a farmer's market in Mountain Home, Arkansas. In the next few weeks, that tomato plant earned the name "The Little plant That Wouldn't Die," thanks to repeated, albeit innocent, attempts on its life.
The little tomato plant refused to die. It refused to die even after I tortured it into fitting through a too-small scissor-made hole at the bottom of my plastic pot so that I could transform it into the much-touted upside-down tomato plant. It refused to die even after it rode at top speed at the end of a rope tied to the back of the motor home for over twenty miles in the pouring rain (remember spring?) It refused to die even after it endured a lapse in watering duties by Dylan, officially anointed the guardian of the tomato plant.
But it didn't survive Nicolas.
He yanked it by the leaves one day shortly after its last triumphant escape from our household's unconscious annihilation attempts. That was the last straw for the little tomato plant, it didn't make a comeback.
This story doesn't end here, though, for I kept the empty flower pot in hopes of seeing the little tomato plant resurrect from the damp earth (I dutifully watered it,) sad at its demise still, and a little miffed too, I admit, since it was supposed to be indestructible, after all.
That's when the real miracle happened.
About a month afterward a little shoot appeared in the bare pot and grew so incredibly fast it was riveting to see its progress every morning (and I was reminded once again of the blind force of life in all its infinite forms.) It was a tiny twig, and soon it sprouted two leaves: it was a maple tree. A maple tree growing right there in the ashes of the little tomato plant that did die but lived on, a little maple tree-in-becoming, just two leaves, beautifully defined, our little gardening miracle of life renewed.
Dylan loves to gather and plant seeds everywhere we go, no doubt he had put a little maple tree seed, those aery winged marvels, in the flower pot some time back.
The shoot grew on, two leaves at a time, then faced some challenges of its own. It was attacked by some mysterious fungus, and I applied a treatment and saved it, only a few weeks later I inadvertently parked the motor home on top of it while performing the daily leveling duties, and screamed in horror as I spotted its leaves under the wheel by the front door, scrambled into the driver's seat to move the trailer, shouting incoherently, Fridman and the kids watching my hysterics, mouth open. It survived with only bruises.
A few weeks later still, it was the heat wave that almost did it under, drying up all but one sole leaf, new shoots shriveled in mid-growth. All that stubborn growing, only one leaf left, and now after turning brownish it finally dropped last week.
The little tree is alive, it will sprout again next year, if all goes well - the little tomato plant living on in it, too.

A trailer with a view.

September 28, Channahon, Illinois (27 miles, Central Park.)

A trailer with a view.

September 27, Darien, Illinois (6 miles, Carefree Carmelite Village.)

A trailer with a view.

September 26, Downers Grove, Illinois (28 miles, middle school grounds.)

On being.

September 25, Chicago.

This, from an interview with rabbi David Hartman on the NPR radio program On Being: "I need people to take me out of a locked room and let me breath alternative pictures."
And this: "Joyful are those who seek God, not those who found God." (from Psalms.)
Let me breath alternative pictures.
I am reminded once again that On Being is a such deep, thoughtful, provoking program, that it embodies the best of what public media can be, an important part of public discourse, that it sheds new light on my life every time I stop long enough to listen, and I am thankful.

A trailer with a view.

September 25, Chicago, Illinois (Norwood Park neighborhood, 17 miles, Norwood Park school grounds.)

Framed.

September 23, Rolling Meadows.

Backstage.

September 23, Rolling Meadows.

A trailer with a view.

September 23, Rolling Meadows, Illinois (37 miles,community center park.)

A trailer with a view.

September 22, Lockport, Illinois (45 miles, Brett Hassert Park.)

Mostly circus.

September 21, Crete.

Almost a hundred miles to come back to Crete, where we played on the eve of this year's Chicagoland tour, to just park for the day. Armando's truck has lights issues, so we idled on the side of the road for almost two hours, barely ten miles into the long jump. By the time I made it to Crete it was noon, and the cook house was closed. Fridman was still a long way out, having stopped at the weight station then blown the arrows.
Today is a day off.
Later on tonight the whole circus is going to see Universoul Circus in Chicago. That's what circus people do when they have a day off: they go see another circus.

A trailer with a view.

September 21, Crete, Illinois (94 miles, Balmoral park.)