Click the audio file, and read along…

As a young boy growing up in the ’50s, I was fascinated by the circus. Toby Tyler, written by James Otis was a bedtime favorite, and fueled my fantasy of running away to join the circus. Alas, over time, the circus has fallen out of favor as family entertainment.

After incessant criticism by animal rights activists and the advent of video gaming and media streaming, the 1905 Gavioli Band Organ Wagon (with 367 wooden and metal pipes, 2 drums, a cymbal, and a 17-bar glockenspiel) which once heralded the arrival of the circus train…

has now been relegated to a circus museum with fifty other antique circus wagons within the W.W. Deppe Wagon Pavilion…

at Circus World in Baraboo, WI,

conceived on grounds known as the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers,

who launched their first circus tour from Baraboo in 1884.

As we walked the grounds,

we realized that the circus is more than the sum of its parts.

It’s more than the costumes;

more than the animals;

more than the performers;

more than the sideshow attractions;

and more than the music;

It’s a longing for our youth,

and our feelings of wonder before we were forever trapped in our responsible, adult bodies.