I trust you folks don't mind the larger font size; my weary old eyes tire so quickly trying to proof-read anything smaller. If you need something to read to take your mind off the ennui of the long and usually useless Labor Day weekend, here it is; another chapter from those halycon years when the world was my oyster. This one, in a way, is about hockey, but mostly it's about living in a motorhome.
You've all been very patient with me over these past months as I've complained about the questionable motels I stay at as part of my job traveling for Culpepper & Merriweather Circus. So I thought I would take you back to 1973, when I lived in a 35-foot motorhome, provided by Ringling Brothers Circus.
The winter of 1972 was a bad one; I returned from Mexico, having canceled a world tour with noted pantomime artist Sigfrido Aguilar due to a slight case of amoebic dysentary. My five-eleven frame had melted down to a mere 105 pounds. The Mexican doctors were agreed that I needed to put some meat on my gringo bones back in the States, so I holed up with the parents in Minneapolis. A few dozen doses of antibiotics and a raft of solid meals featuring meat not crawling with flies and potatoes in all their glorious disguises soon had me back on my flat feet, facing the prospect of hunting for a job.
Early spring; the elm trees shyly uncurling their leaves and fat robins strutting in the backyard with heads tilted for another worm. I sat in the kitchen, sunk in gloom, the Want Ads spread all around me. Then the phone rang.
Thirty years ago when the phone rang at home it was a pretty important event. And loud. Phones sounded like fire alarms back then.
I picked up the receiver to hear the mellow tones of a comrade-in-arms from Mexico, Steve Smith. He came right to the point. Being no slouch, he had been pestering the Ringling office for a clown job all winter. They had nothing on the show for him, but they needed a clown team to travel ahead of the show for advance publicity. Could Smith get a reliable partner? He was calling me to find out.
That's how the immortal duo of Dusty & TJ Tatters was born. We traveled the length and the breadth of this fair land, appearing at school assemblies, in childrens hospital wards, and at supermarket grand openings -- anywhere clowns would garner a few columns of linotype or 30 seconds on the local tv news.
And we traveled in a motorhome provided by the circus, me buckos. Smith and I divided the duties in an equitable manner; he drove the thing and I did all the cooking. Ah yes, I grew quite skilled in tossing together a stew or ragout into the crockpot in the morning so we could come home to a hot meal after the comedy labors of the day were done. Smith was easy to please. He'd grown up in a household that relied on a staple he called Potato Chip Casserole, and his idea of fine dining was a bag of Oreos and a quart of Coca Cola. Of course, being the navigator, Smith insisted on the perogative of the master bed in the back of the motorhome, leaving me with the bed that folded out from the under the kitchen table. As the season progressed my bed developed a benign tumor right in the middle of the mattress, but we were young and carefree and I overlooked the stabbing back pain each morning as a trifle.
Now to the hockey part, or is it basketball? Someone will have to remind which sport gets the Stanley Cup each year.
This much is distinct; we were parked at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Sunday morning, and I put on a clean white shirt, black trousers, and struggled with a shiny polyester necktie bought at J.C. Penney's for two-dollars. My knots were all thumbs, so to speak. I always wound up with a bulging clot under my chin that made me look like I had a goiter. No matter. We had Sunday off, and I was on my way to the local LDS church for services. Smith was esconced in his bed, watching tv and gorging on Oreos and a six pack of Coke.
Being a professional gad-about for the past 30 years or so, I have noticed a sad, sad decline in LDS hospitality. Back then I had only to show up at church, shake a few hands, and I would be fending off dinner invitations right and left. Today when I show up as a stranger at church I am pretty much ignored, and the few limp handshakes I get are never accompanied by a dinner invitation. I guess Mormons don't go in for grand Sunday dinners anymore, that the stranger at the gate in these post-9/11 times is not considered a blessing. Of course back then I was a comely youth, obviously unmarried and ripe for romantic enterprise. And when I would announce casually that I was saving my money to go on a mission for the church, well . . . mom and dad couldn't think of a better catch for their daughter than yours truly. So the invite home for baked ham, whipped potatoes, greenbean casserole, and a big honking bowl of jello was always forthcoming. Today, alas, when I slouch in to church it is obvious from the get-go that I am not only past my prime, but have that hunted, ferret-like, appearance that announces to the world: This Guy Owes A Lot Of Back Child Support. And it doesn't help that I still haven't learned how to tie a decent necktie knot. Thus, I now spend my Sunday afternoons at the buffet table at KFC, not breaking bread with some respectable LDS family in the bossom of their own home.
But enough kvetching. Back to that Sunday in Philadelphia. As I say, I was invited home for dinner after church -- to the Bishop's house, if memory serves, where we feasted on one another's company just as much as we did on the home-canned plums and peaches and other goodies from an ample cellar filled with food storage items. There was a daughter, her name escapes me at this late date. We promised to write to each other faithfully each week until after my mission -- as Mary Poppins said, pie crust promises; easily made & easily broken.
Then I returned to the motorhome with a basket of leftovers for that godless young man Smith, who had wasted his day in bed rioting with cookies and beverages drenched in corn syrup.
But something was strangely amiss with the motorhome. The tires were flat. The windshield was broken. Dents and scratches covered the sides of the vehicle. I rushed inside to find Smith on his knees, grimly washing the floor and softly repeating every blasphemy he could think of.
Turns out that while I had been singing psalms at church, the Philadelphia Flyers had won the Stanley Cup and the fans had erupted in a drunken euphoria once they reached the parking lot where our motorhome unfortunately stood. They tried tipping it over and setting it on fire. Failing that, they merely vandalized it -- including climbing on top, ripping off the air vent, and urinating inside. And Smith had been inside the whole blessed time.
We never did get that urine smell quite gone. And the poor old motorhome seemed to lose mechanical heart after that; when we were heading west through the Rockies the engine became unreliable, stranding us several times. By the time we reached the West Coast the circus took away our motorhome and put us up in swanky hotels for the rest of the season. Gourmet room service and a valet to sponge and press your suit coat day or night. No cable tv back in those days, but 30 years ago just to have four channels on a color tv was pretty darn ritzy.
There is no moral to this story, only a wistful memory of youthful days when going to church meant a dinner invitation and my continuing uncertainty about the Stanley Cup . . . is that for hockey or basketball?
Kick back and relax with hot games and cool activities at the Messenger Café.
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