The smell of home...

If you didn't know, I used to be a circus clown, juggler, acrobat for a few North American Circuses. Here are some "Clown Alley" shots of my time with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.Can you figure out the Chinese clown?

I'm getting way too sentimental with my old age.This next article made me crave the road!

THE RICH AROMA OF ELEPHANT

Do elephants have a distinctive odor? Of course they do—and to the

dyed-in-the-wool circus fan it's an essential bit of atmosphere.

But to others, well, an elephant just smells. Following is a verbatim

exchange between a Madison woman who obviously finds elephant scents

offensive, and 88 year old John M. Kelley, president of the Circus

World Museum at Baraboo, who thinks otherwise—as you will discover.

Kelley, who was attorney for the Ringling brothers for years,

commented on the exchange: "When you get as old as Methuselah and

bald as a billiard ball, women will still get in your hair."

The letter that started it off:

Circus World Museum

Baraboo, Wis.

Dear Sir:

We visited your museum and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, except for

one thing—the smell of the elephant. This seemed too bad to have the

smell amid all of the wonderful exhibits that we saw. There must be

something you can do about this.

Yours very truly,

Mrs. ________________

And Kelley took pen in hand and replied:

Dear Madam:

You seem to be wandering, like a lost child, in an ozone of

wilderness. I will do my best to help correct your apparent

misunderstanding relating to the fitness, rapture and tonic wrapped

up in the museum's elephant smell.

For many a year elephant smell in old winter quarters exerted as much

influence upon children for truthfulness as a Sunday School lesson.

After their round of play with elephant Babe—late for supper—they

would amble home to be questioned by mother as to where they had

been. Those who lied had occasion to woo the value of truth. Their

mother knew by the smell of them where they had been. It is from

those incidents of elephant smell that the Ringling shows came to be

called the "Sunday School Circus".

There are smells to share and smells to shun. There is scarcely

anything more detestably smelly than a mudyard pig. However, those

who abhor it on foot, adore it when corpus, squeal and smell are

converted into sausage.

The function of smell is to impart fragrance acceptable to varied

tastes, and the elephant variety stands preeminent in purity,

strength, consistency and pungency. It is only within the last

century that American culture popularized nasal acceptance of

elephant smell.

A lady of your fine discernment should not remain aloof and out of

step with the marching throngs that mellow their mood and happily

relax in the exhilarating sniff of elephant smell. Its lodgment even

in the home contributes comfort, confidence and peace. No wife of an

elephant handler has ever sued for divorce. It is the only smell that

knits the family tie.

Conversion to elephant smell is educational and, like the olive or

garlic, one has to cultivate a taste for it. You cannot see it or

feel it—yet it clings like a mother's love. Its vaporized essence is

so real that you cannot dilute it, dissolve it, liquefy it, freeze

it, smother it, counterfeit it, cut it, shake it or lose it. Its

attachment has the tinge of the fee simple. Little wonder that

America's millions in circus, museum and zoo, have rallied with

amazing schnozzle aptitude for this wondrous smell. Its fragrance is

nationalized.

Historically, Robert Bruce watched and waited for the spider to try

again. I invite you to again visit the museum. Take a deeper breath

into the volume of its penetrating fragrance. Be convinced. Elephant

smell is the fourth dimension in the scope of museum features—and it

is free. It is a bouquet attachment you may enjoy while you are there—

and you will proudly carry it with you.

Atmospherically yours,

John M. Kelley

President, Circus World Museum, Inc.