It Could Only Have Happened To A Musician- It Happened At The Circus

If you live long enough, you will have experienced everything. As a member of the senior class, I would like to share personal stories which you may find humorous. Unlike the “How many light bulbs does it take to change a trumpet player? Answer: Unfortunately nothing can change a trumpet player,” type of jokes, these stories really happened and I can vouch for every one of them for I was there.

The day the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus band stopped playing.

This fine organization has entertained audiences for decades and even under the most hazardous conditions, i.e. fires, storms, out of control animals, etc. the band played on. It was the custom for the band’s director to keep the music going no matter what the emergency. That was the unbroken tradition until they performed at the Cattle Congress Arena in Waterloo, Iowa. Little did we know that day that we would be making history.

The band was seated on the main floor with the animals and the other entertainers. As I remember the show, Keith Killenger, ( I believe from the Des Moines, Iowa area) was the director and we were at the point in the program where the elephants were brought in to finish the first half. As we played our traditional gallops and marches, the elephant’s handlers began to back the enormous pachyderms to within inches of the front row of the band. Still we continued to play. Then, from the corner of my eye, I noticed something very strange happening. First the largest animal’s tail began to rise. We kept playing. Then I noticed a change in the diameter of a certain orifice directly below the elephant’s tail. At that moment, the baritone sax player noticed the change also and with lightening speed grabbed his instrument and bolted for safety. And we still kept playing. It would be tasteless to describe the next few seconds for I’m sure you grasp the urgency of the moment. And we kept playing. With what sounded to some as a thunderous crash and to others a loud splat, the band was joined by a mountain of deification. And the band stopped playing. The scene from the seats in the audience was comical. Musicians were scattering like a fleshly flushed covey of quail, the elephant was startled to the point of panic and the debris continued to fall with more force. The baritone sax player, who was directly under the target area, was standing at least fifty yards from the scene of the accident and still holding his instrument. For a very large man to cover that much distant in such a short amount of time was amazing. The director, unable to control the situation had decided to escape the fallout area also. The front row of the band had vanished and before the remaining musicians could regain our composure, we were again attacked by the circus as the personnel responsible for clean up began to though shovels full of saw dust over everything and everyone in sight. As the sawdust (sawdust) settled, the audience behind the band  began to realize what had happened and the laughter first started in the  pianissimo range, quickly rose to a full triple forte.

It must have taken at least five minutes to regain control of the band before the director led us in our next gallop. Years after that experience, when again playing with the same circus band, the story was still being circulated as to the time and possibly the only time the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus band stopped playing during a show.