Going to the Circus

Last night the famous Carson & Barnes Circus came to the town of North Liberty, Indiana. Okay, THEY say it's famous and been around 70+ years, but I'd never heard of it. This was actually a fundraiser for the small Christian school that our kids attend and the big top (which was pretty good size) was set up in the grass by the North Liberty Church of Christ.

Growing up, I vaguely remember a 3rd grade field trip in Arizona to see a circus. But other than that, never went to one nor remember ever caring to go to one. Although, I guess I also did go to Circus Circus, but that was in Las Vegas and not exactly the same thing (the trapeze artists for the circus last night, we were told, came from Circus Circus).

The kids absolutely loved the circus, and even baby Allie sat there kind of awestruck. They had the usual assortment of circus acts. You had your jugglers, your acrobats, trapeze artists, and of course the animal acts culminating in the elephants doing their thing ,which Anna really thought was cool. There were also clowns, but I wasn't scared of them like Kramer (that's a "Seinfeld" reference).

Dorene and I were not into it all that much, but it wasn't for us, it was for the kids and they indeed had a blast. We sort of analyzed what the circus life must be like. One thing I noticed was that every single act began with the announcement, "From South America, please welcome . . . " In other words, these were probably all undocumented workers making minimum wage (if they were lucky). I believe just about every act was from South America, except for the dog act from the Ukraine.

The ringmaster was straight out of some old movie. A large fellow with a booming voice. During intermission, he came out with a yellow python that you could get your picture taken with. Anna likes snakes, but not that much. Also during intermission, they do all they could to milk more money out of the parents. They set up pony rides and elephant rides right there in the middle. How could you say no? Thus, Cameron got his elephant ride and spent his other $$ on a light saber, to go with his ever growing collection.