The Sun Day is just over eight years old, and since day one, I’ve adhered to a very strict, personal code in which I won’t disclose my leanings on politics, faith, or social issues because I don’t want my beliefs clouding the Sun Day’s objectivity. I have slipped and left behind clues, and a very astute reader of Happy Trails may be able to determine my personal views, but for the most part, I’ve maintained my anonymity. All in the sake of objective journalism.
But it’s finally come time to disclose something about myself I haven’t done yet. So at the risk of everyone thinking, “Oh, great, there’s a clown running our newspaper,” here it is: I used to be in a circus.
Granted, it was a long time ago. I was young. A kid, in fact, testing our social waters. But there it is. I was in a circus.
But I wasn’t a clown.
I was, in fact, a juggler.
I have very few legitimate talents. There are things I’m good at doing (writing, home repair, I possess a weird audio quirk, and of course, there’s journalism), but in terms of ingrained talent, I really only possess one: juggling.
I discovered this talent when I was nine. I was messing around with some golf balls in my backyard when I picked up three and just started juggling them. I was awkward, at first, but I honed the skill quick, especially after divulging this to an uncle, who’s also a talented juggler, and was taken under his wing. Over the next few years, he introduced me to all sorts of juggling instruments (pins, devil sticks, and much to my mother’s displeasure, really cool things like torches and knives). No matter the instrument he threw my way (very literally sometimes, threw my way) I caught on quick. Really quick, days quick—the risk of being impaled or burned was great motivation. By twelve, I realized I was a born juggler.
Then the day came where my uncle suggested to my father that he get me involved in the circus that he and my cousin (his daughter) were involved in for a few years at that point.
The obvious joke is what parent doesn’t think his child belongs in a circus? But in this case, it was serious. “Al, I’m telling you,” my uncle said to my father, “you should get this kid involved in the circus.”
And that’s how I found myself inside a ring of lights under the big top.
Okay, it wasn’t a very big ring and it wasn’t under the Big Top. It was Triton Troupers that operates out of Triton College in River Grove. And although it is a community circus, it’s a nationally recognized stepping stone to the greats like Ringling (before it closed, at least).
I was with the circus and participated in juggling routines for only two seasons (’92 and ’93), and it was there that my young ego took its first real hit in life.
In my family and in my school, I was undeniably an incredible juggler. I even remember doing juggling in gym class once and getting outraged that I had to start on scarves with the rest of the class when I was actively juggling machetes in my backyard. Oh, please, scarves! I can do those in my sleep.
I was even further outraged when the teacher made each student “pass” a skill test before moving on to balls and then from balls to pins, all of which I “mastered” by then. Or at least, I thought. I argued my position with the teacher, insisting that I should jump straight into the big leagues but continually encountered, “No, Chris, you will start where everyone else starts.” In other words: at the bottom. So for a few weeks, I marched through gym class bored and indignant and entirely missing the fun. And, worse, not helping teach the other kids who couldn’t juggle or couldn’t juggle very well.
Then I arrived at Triton Troupers and had my ego handed to me when I had to juggle along with people much more skilled than I was. Way more skilled. Way more talented. Some so talented I looked like the beginner. But how could that be?! Oh, my young pride.
But unlike me and my prideful self, these jugglers opened up their skills to me, offered me grace I didn’t deserve, and helped me develop my skill even more, and I became better for it.
That was the first time I learned to step aside and let myself walk by and get out of the way of myself.
Of course, that didn’t end my walk down that glory road of youth where you think you know everything, but it was the first time I got kicked off it.
I left the circus after only two seasons but only because full teens hit and I was too busy with friends. Over the years, there have been plenty of times I got kicked off that road but I’ve carried that first lesson with me ever since, and I’m happily on the ground with everyone else. I enjoy the view from “down here” more than I ever did from “up there,” which is why I keep myself out of the Sun Day.
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again: the Sun Day is not my paper. It belongs to the contributors (past and current), the advertisers, and most of all, the readers.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, it was my dad who was a clown. I’m serious.
