The Circus Lives

By John Clayton

Originally Published in the Monocacy Monocle, Volume V, Number 7, July 18, 2008.

Back in the good old days, not only in the U.S. but all over the world, it was a big deal when the circus came to town. I’m not quite old enough to remember this signature small town event from personal experience, but like any self-respecting Baby Boomer, I at least remember it from the movies, television, and the occasional novel. Unfortunately, the novel that leaps to mind is Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, but notwithstanding that particular circus’s bad intent, the novel really caught the excitement and feeling of the arrival of the big event that gets us out of our business-as-usual existence. In the good old days, the circus would enter in a parade with the wild animals, the dog-faced boy, the trapeze artists in their flashy costumes, and the Yak Woman (a sweet gal, and one heck of a good cook) all waving to the crowd. The tent or tents were set up, and everybody went to the big show. Then the circus left, and with the exception of a trampled field and some excellent fertilizer left behind, that was it.

With the arrival and departure of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, Poolesville has indeed seen the circus come to town, and it was a pretty impressive show. I admit that these are strictly armchair observations on my part, as I did not actually go to the event itself, although I did a couple of drive-bys on Jerusalem Road. The Monocle had its own man-on-the-inside with Rande Davis, who copped a press pass and pretty much had the run of the place for the duration, so my presence would have been redundant at best. His comprehensive wrap of the event is elsewhere in this issue.

Everybody was talking about it. A number of people asked me if the Monocle was on top of it, and I told them we were all over it (thank you, Rande). I began to ask people if they had ever actually seen the show, and what I learned was that everybody watches this show. I, unfortunately, had never actually seen the show, although when I first heard about the big event that was brewing outside of town I had to admit that the name of the show had a certain ring of familiarity. This isn’t cultural snobbery by any means, but I will admit that if you want to reach me, you had better run your message on the evening news or Baseball Tonight—that’s about it. My fourteen-year-old daughter’s friends thought it was pretty cool that I had a partner that was hobnobbing with Ty Pennington, and I’m sure my failure to do the same only confirmed my cultural cluelessness, but there’s not much I can do about that now.

I then did the only responsible thing: I watched an episode of the show. It’s a pretty entertaining show. It moves along briskly and has some nice campy audience-participation moments where everyone knows what is expected and pitches in with great exuberance. Watching things get built by people that know what they’re doing is extremely entertaining, as witnessed by any number of successful do-it-yourself shows, makeover shows, and even cooking shows if you think about it. This show is also based on altruism towards people whom we can all agree deserve a helping hand, so you can’t deny the feel-good factor overriding the whole enterprise. Reading the aforementioned article, you will see that others have joined in the spirit of assisting the Jackson family, and we can certainly all be proud to live in such a community as ours. I understand the Poolesville show will be on television in September. I’ll be watching. I think it’s great they came to Poolesville. I can’t wait until they come to Barnesville.