THE “CIRCUS” LAYOUT
Published in Wetmore Spectator,
January 10, 1936.
By John T. Bristow
Now, I trust “Buddy” will be satisfied with the foregoing narration of events at the old swimming hole. He really should be. He is in it—figuring inversely, up to his neck.
Since the actual distance from the swimming hole to the tanyard was but twenty steps—and I mean literally steps—there should be no difficulty in making the switch over. Those twenty steps did, however, at times, present physical hazards. They were dirt steps carved out on a rather steeply inclined bank, up which the tanner’s sons carried water in buckets from pond to tanvat. Barefooted, with pants rolled up to our knees, we would dig in with our toes when going up with the filled buckets, always spilling a little water on the way, until those steps would become a veritable otter’s slide. As a boy’s bare heels, in the old days, were poorly fashioned for digging in, the water carriers would then have to use the longer rope-protected path provided for making the descent with the empty buckets. One slippery slide on one’s backside was a hint that it was time to make the switch.
But a rehash of the “circus layout” as my Old Pal puts it, is maybe going to be disappointing, as I can now think of nothing in this connection to pin on Buddy. However, I suppose it might have been considered—for recreation purposes only—as a sort of adjunct to the tannery. The trapeze, horizontal bars, and spring-board, were only about fifty feet removed from the tanvats. And then, too, the lot had the tanyard smell.
Ringling Brothers wagon circus had recently made a stand here, and the “fever” among the local youngsters was running high. Activity about the lot was both spirited and awkward, with a lively bunch willing to try anything—once.
The real trouble was, we had only one Star performer. Charley Askren was, before he got injured in a fall, a trapeze and bar performer with the Dan Rice circus. He was a welcome instructor. And though he could still do some wonderful stunts, I think there are none I want to mention here, except maybe the time he let me slip through his hands in a rather daring act, the fall to the ground breaking my left arm.
This statement, without qualification, would hardly do justice to my old team-mate. Had we made it, the act would have been a honey. And had Charley not said, grandly, to a “skirted” audience, “This is going to be good. Keep your eyes pinned on this Johnny boy, the G-R-E-A-T and only—,” in real circus ballyhoo fashion, it might not have been a flop. Charley used a lot of circus terms in his work with us.
The trouble was, I “weakened”—just a wee bit, to be sure—at the moment when I took the air, and after making a complete turn came down also a wee bit tardy for Charley to get a firm hold on me, in his head-down swinging position. Had he caught me by the wrists, he would have tossed me, on the third swing, face about, back to the bar from which I had made the takeoff.
In practice, another boy — usually George Foreman, brother of Mrs. L. C. McVay and Mrs. R. A. DeForest — would stand by to right me, in case of a slip. George was tall and very active. Sometimes we would change positions in this act. I know now that this would have been a grand time for me to have called out, in the usual way, “Let George do it!”
Sure, we had a well-filled straw-tick which was always placed under the weaklings—but who was there among us that would have wanted to have it brought out in the presence of lady visitors? Of the two lady spectators, one was a redhead. She fell in love with Charley—and married him. Charley had done a lot of impressive flipping and flopping to gain his position on the bar for the act. The redhead’s younger black; haired sister (Anna) was the better looking, and near my age—but, as of the moment, I did not shine as I hoped I might. And then, too, I had that broken arm to think about. Dr. Thomas Milam “splinted” it up drum-tight, according to ancient practice—but, by midnight, he had to do it all over again.
Then, my Dad came onto the lot, and without any coaching whatsoever, did some pretty tall kicking. Not the circus kind, however. The “circus” paraphernalia was then moved up town to a vacant spot alongside Than Morris’ corn cribs on the lots west of where the Dr. Lapham home now stands. But it was no go. The tannery was the natural place for such things.
Charley Askren came to us, as a young man, in the early 70’s. He was a carpenter. He married Lib Fleming. And notwithstanding his serious injury caused by the collapse of a trapeze under the Dan Rice bigtop, he lived to be quite an old man. He died at his home in Atchison last year. Here’s hoping that his kid co-performer — the G-R-E-A-T and only”—may live as long.
Honesty — The Better Policy
NOTE—Some seventy-five years ago I accidentally dropped a five-dollar gold piece into one of the big vats at our old tanyard on the creek bank near the town bridge at the foot of Kansas Avenue which gold piece was never recovered.
The old bridge has now been removed, and a new one—156-foot span—is being constructed over a newly dug creek channel sixty-five yards south of the old one, on a grade ten feet above the old road. In building up the grade between the old bridge site and the railroad, Albert Tanking, of Seneca, operator of a County bulldozer, today—June 11, 1949—moved the ground where the old tanvats were buried.
As he made the excavation I noticed no signs of the old sunken vats—but it is none the less certain that my five-dollar gold piece is now deposited somewhere along the west slope of the fill, or in the “sunken garden” between the fill and the newly cut drain-ditch paralleling it. After it rains on the works it is possible that I might go down there and pick it up. But I think that I shall leave this for the kids to exploit. It was a sort of kid’s keepsake, anyway.
That five-dollar gold piece was first given me some years earlier, in change, by mistake for a nickel. I thought I had been cheated. I took it back to Peter Shavey, who had a confectionery store in the old part of the building now occupied by Hettie Shuemaker-Kroulik. He praised me for being an honest boy—and he loaded me up with candy and oranges. And then he said, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give you this gold piece for a keepsake, something to remind you always that it pays to be honest.” And think of it — the old Frenchman was illegally selling whiskey and unlawfully operating a poker game in the back room.
I said, “Thank you, Mr. Shavey—but I still have not got my nickel back.”
He laughed, “Here, honest boy, here’s your nickel.” And now I can’t be sure If Mr. Peter Shavey inspired this noble trait of honesty in me—or if it just comes natural.