Wit Stop

Be a Clown, Be a Clown

Each year Tombstone hosts Emmett Kelly Jr. Days, a celebration of laughter which features entertainment, parades, face-painting, and clown costume contests. It's usually held in November around the famous clown's birthday. I should be there. Not just in Tombstone for the festivities, but in the Clown Hall of Fame alongside Emmett Kelly Jr. I've always felt a calling to the "Order of the Red Nose," and many signs throughout my life have nudged me toward that noble profession. As a youngster (I don't know at what age - I was too young to know much, but old enough to be obnoxious), I decided to leave home and join the circus, as a clown, of course. Apparently I was old enough to know that I didn't want to work the high wire without a net. My mother, strangely enough, agreed that I should (I must have been even more obnoxious than I thought). She spread peanut butter and jelly on some bread, wrapped it in wax paper, threw it into a bag with an apple and a candy bar, and even helped me pack a few belongings for my journey. She sent me off with a hug and a kiss and a question: "Are you wearing clean underwear?" I didn't become a clown then because I wasn't allowed to cross the street by myself, and there were no circuses on my side of the street. The passion, though, persisted, and the compass of fate kept pointing me in that direction. Through my early school years, friends kept telling me I was a clown. Not that I should be a clown, or I had the potential to be a clown. I was a clown. And not just a select few or isolated acquaintances told me this; almost everyone did. For example, in my senior year in high school, every girl I asked to be my date to the prom said that to me. The trend continued through college. There I had to take a test that supposedly would show what course of study I had an interest in and an aptitude for. The counselor told me I should become a clown. He didn't say it in those words exactly. He said, "The results of this test show that you should pursue a profession that involves either baggy pants or oversize, floppy shoes. . . or both." He dressed rather poorly himself, so he suggested I become a teacher. I knew he meant "be a clown." I knew it because I knew what I had written on the test. One of the inane questions asked: if you stood in a long line and someone jumped ahead of you, you would (a) accept it graciously, (b) say something to that person, or (c) physically harm the linejumper. I wrote down that I would take all the people in the line ahead of me and try to crowd them into one tiny Volkswagen. Circus clowning, you see, pulsed through my veins. Naturally, though, I studied more conventional subjects. Took a conventional job. Even that indicated my comedic bent. Many times I would see my superiors waving papers and shouting, "What clown wrote this report?" I swelled with pride. However, reading all about Emmett Kelly Jr. Days in Tombstone reawakened my youthful desires. At breakfast one morning, I said to my wife, "Dear, I've decided to become a clown."

She said, "Really, dear? What kind of clown?" I said, "A professional clown, a real clown." She said, "Good, darling. You've come so close on so many occasions." I think she took my statement lightly. I said, "Sweetheart, I'm being deadly serious." She said, "That's a fine attitude for a clown to have." I said, "I'm going to leave my job and make my living as a clown." She said, "Oh, don't be silly." I said, "That's exactly what I intend to be." "Being a clown is not as easy as it looks. Name one thing that you can do to qualify you." I'd prepared for that question. I leaned toward her and squirted her with a trick flower I had bought in a novelty shop some years before. She didn't seem pleased. It was probably not a good time in the discussion to introduce my use of props. She wiped her face and said, "So you want to be a clown?" I said, "More than anything in the world. I want someday to have clown festivities in my honor." "Do whatever makes you happy," she said. I never became a clown, but my wife hit it right on the head. Do whatever makes you happy. Circus clowns, TV clowns, theatrical clowns, amateurs and professionals, they all do what makes them happy. More importantly, they make other people happy, too. I may never become a professional clown, never get into that Hall of Fame, but I can spread a little laughter, a little joy each day. We all can. It may not be our profession, but it's not a bad hobby, either.

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