Bob was a friend of my dad’s back in the 70’s…. They had been in his CB club together… I remember him for a few reasons other than the fact that he had a daughter near my age with buck teeth and they lived right around the corner from us. I never really knew what he did for a living but he had a few Irons’ in the fire… They were nice people but something was a bit off about them. His wife reminded me of an Ugly version of Loretta Lynn…. She had extra high cheek bones that made her look like a scary puppet in a nightmare…. And a blond afro. Her daughter was the mirror image of her except her teeth looked like she could eat an apple through a tennis racket and her hair was strait…. I remembered that I had NOT wanted to be friends with her at first… When you’re a kid you seem to know the importance of not drawing a lot of attention to your self if you don’t quite seem to fit in to the “norm” of things and SHE drew a lot of attention… Needless to say we became friends. Ever day after school I would go over to their house and she and I would play in the garage… One day I came across an old chest… As I removed old magazines and junk from the top I could just make out the face of a clown… My hand swiped away the dust and I could read the word CIRCUS on it…. I called her over and asked what it was… She then told me it was a circus her dad had carved out of wood…. My fingers went strait to the latches and she stopped me… she told me her dad NEVER let her play with it…. I then said I just wanted to SEE it… she wouldn’t budge! Now to a 9 years old child that is just UNREAL! The days turned into weeks and my thoughts were consumed with that trunk. I wanted to open it! Ever day after school I went to her house… Every day I ask her….. Every day she said NO! …. Then one day I showed up and was told she was at the dentist…. I was told to wait out in the garage for her….. I stood there in front of that trunk…. I wasted no time thinking about it…. My fingers went right to the latches. It opened up and I smelled a fowl odor….. Inside was little boxes field with tiny wood figurines… my hand went in and I picked up a carved elephant… Even to a child it was beautiful…. The whole circus was there down to the tents…. He had even carved little men with shovels to clean up after the animals…. Again my hand went in and this time I came out with a clown…. My fingers caressed the smooth baggy pants and then I heard a car pull up on the other side of the garage door that was closed. As I looked up scared my fingers curled around the clown and I heard a pop…. I looked down in shock at my hand…. My mouth hung open as I looked down at my palm and the clown now missing a head…. I did have the since to close and lock the trunk back before anyone came in but the clown went in my pocket. I hadn’t wanted to steal it! But I couldn’t put it back like it was! I made some excuse to go home when she came in because I couldn’t stand the thought of the clown in my pocket…. I thought that if I could just fix it and put it back then no one would be the wiser… As I sat in my room with the Elmer’s glue trying to put the head back on my older brother came in and saw the clown…. “OH MY GOD! THAT’S BOB’S CIRCUS CLOWN!” He said….. He then told me how he had seen the whole circus sat up about 5 years ago at the library in our town…. How it had been roped off and signs around it saying not to touch it…. I looked down at the tiny clown and said that I had seen a lot of clowns in the trunk…he wouldn’t miss one! Then my brother took the headless clown from me and explained that Bob had numbered them as he turned it over and showed me!… It was then that I began to cry… My brother, instead of consoling me told me I was fucked….. That there was no way I was going to be able to fix it and even if I did how was I going to put it back!…. I never thought of taking this problem to my Dad! I believe that would have just compounded the problem…. After some intensive surgery I finally got the head to stay on…. I found an old electric shaver box and I put him inside of it, laying on a bed of Kleenex he made the trip back over there with me the next day in my doll pack ( back pack full of dolls)… I don’t know what made me think I would be alone long enough to put him back…. Truth is I never got to open it again… when I figured this out 3 months later I decided to put that shaver box in the ground like a casket…. To have a little funeral for him and then the guilt would go away…. It didn’t… I stopped being friends with Bob’s daughter after that… she called a lot asking me over but the guilt of that clown was too much for me…. When I was 15 they sat the circus back up at the library and I made the trip to see it… It was huge and covered 2 pieces of ply wood and the ring announcer stood there in the center ring like a real man…. My eyes traveled down to the clowns and I felt sick…. That’s when Bobs daughter came over to me and said hello…. I turned around on her and from out of NO where I said louder than I meant to… “ Why wouldn’t you open this and let me see it when we played in your garage!?” The anger on my face took her back a bit…. “ Well look at it.” she said. “ It’s not toys for kids to play with”….. I turned back around to look at it….. Then I saw…. It wasn’t a huge toy!… It was the hard life’s work of a man…. And I had ruined it…. Well in my mind I had…. I wanted to tell her then… Why I had stopped being her friend and what I had done while she was at the dentist, but I couldn’t….. I wouldn’t. Later after I got to be about 30 I found out Bob had died and the rumor was that he had donated his circus and it had went to the Smithsonian Institution…. I made a bee line back to where I had put that clown in the ground but I couldn’t find it… Serves me right… Now 31 years have passed since that day in the garage alone with that circus… And I remember it like it was yesterday… How in one brief after noon , I had ruined a man’s life work and destroyed a friend ship over thinking of myself… I wonder now about that circus and how many children have looked at it and wished that they could touch it… Just to hold one of those clowns or animals in there tiny hand…(smiling)… Ah but we know that would be a mistake, don’t we?…

Have you ever wished you were someone else because you thought you just weren’t interesting enough? I have been doing that since I was a kid. I remember riding along in the back seat to go some where with the family and looking out the window at families in the passing car’s…I remember wishing that I was part of their family…. Of course I had no idea at the time that they too were probably just like us… dysfunctional….. I was better off for not getting the wish…. But it didn’t stop me from wishing it….

Since I got my trusty treasure hunter last Christmas I have been researching things on the Civil War… I found a great battle that Sherman his self was in…. not more than 40 miles away….. I’m searching for a canon ball…. But if I find a bullet or a button off a uniform I’ll be happy….Now I myself thought…. “How the hell are you going to find something that deep in the ground when your detector only searches down 10 inches…?” Well the solution is a plowed field. I saw a man last week with a detector searching behind a tractor! So… I’m going to make my husband plow a garden for me! Just so I can use the detector and try that out…. Yeah I figured on the work but I’m pretty good at growing pepper’s and last year I grew a 75 pound water melon… I don’t know what for…. It took me and my husband 4 days of eating melon to get rid of it…. I learned a valuable lesson that summer. Never eat a water melon unless you’re sure it’s ripe! Oh it can fool ya! All juicy and red looking…. But then for a few days later you feel the horrific effects of it. Some kind of serious gastro intestine thing… Just take my word for it…. If you ever grow a melon make sure the spot on it that’s touching the ground is YELLOW and not white!

Now I want to ask your opinion on something…. If your husband said that you reminded him of Dog the bounty hunter’s wife, with out the big boobs, would you be mad? And how about you fella’s? Do you think that Dog’s wife is sexy? Well I happen to know that my husband doesn’t! So all I can surmise about this is that he has insulted me! I’m planning a counter attack! Maybe I will say he reminds me of Rodney Daingerfield!… But then I wouldn’t want to insult Rodney…. I happen to like him a lot…. Oh I think I will wait for just the right time to pay him back… That Pecker Neck!… You know what that is don’t you?.. Well that would be just right UNDER a dick head.