Sometimes, when I'm trying to get back to sleep on a restless night, I'll think about the street where I grew up. Though it's changed radically in the last 65 years, the homes on that small block remain the same. Their appearance, and the people who inhabited them are no longer the same, but as I go up and down the block of this post-war little suburban neighborhood, I can still fill the houses with the names and faces that inhabited them back then. Of course there were always a couple of homes where I drew a blank. Either they had no kids or their inhabitants were far more transient than everyone else.
The last time I did this roll call of names and faces, I remembered an older couple, Doris and Henry, whose kids were grown and on their own. I recalled how they took my sister and me to the circus when I was ab out 8 or 9 years old. They must have asked our parents and missed taking their own kids on some level. In any event, my sister and I went to the circus with them sometime around 1955 or so.
While I do remember the huge tents, the railroad cars, the clown cars, and the big top, that's not what stays with me. Even the elephants, the trained horses, and the trapeze flyers, while memorable, aren't the primary memory. There was a woman who spun around high above the crowd holding on by her teeth to a rope of some kind. The ringmaster and the circus music all hold their place in my memory. But something else remains paramount. Something I retain from that experience stands above everything else. We went to the Side Show.
Of course Side Shows no longer exist, because our culture (for the most part) has evolved from the time we put "freaks" on public display. But at that time, this was a big deal nd these abnormal people often found being a part of a side show was a good way to earn a decent income and see the world.
The side show I attended had the usual suspects. There was a bearded lady, a giant, a "fat lady" and all manner of "midgets and folks of unusual height, big or small. Just writing this description now makes me violate the politically correct rules of describing people who are not the norm.
The man that was billed as the "Giant" was unusually tall. He sat in a chair in front of a circus type poster that often accompanied each participant. We walked from one "booth" to another as if these folks were in a gallery of the absurd. The "giant" had a six pack of empty 7-Up bottles next to his chair, as if he'd drunk each one continuously to quench his giant thirst. There was a man who swallowed a sword right in front of us! In another mini-stage sat a woman with no arms or legs. She wore a light yellow dress that covered her torso but it was impossible to determine how she balanced herself. Nobody spoke, we just gawked. I recall she was not as young as other members of this show. She appeared to be over 45 or 50 to me then.
The most unusual thing I recall was the man who had "alligator skin" on his back. He came out of a curtained off area wearing a bathrobe. After explaining that he grew concerned one day about a scaly growth on his back, he went to a doctor who was equally mystified. Eventually, what resembled alligator skin covered his entire back. He then turned around and faced away from the small crowd that had gathered and removed his robe. Standing there in a bathing suit, he revealed what did appear much like the skin covering an alligator. No other explanation was given a there were a few gasps from the audience at seeing his condition.
As this most memorable day came to a close, Doris and Henry took us to a souvenir stand and said we could each have one thing. My sister chose a glittery baton that she twirled for a few years afterward. I chose a plastic sword. I never tried to swallow it. Alligator skin was not available.
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