The Circus Museum

Today I remembered that at age 10 I wanted to be a "flyer". That was the beautiful girl in the skimpy costume that got flung between hunky guys who were "catchers" on the death defying trapeze. Yep, it was a trip to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that prompted this short lived idea. I also was reminded today as we wandered through the Circus Museum that is was the first place I saw an Elelphant, Lion and a Tiger. Zoos weren't prevalent then and this was my first African animal sighting. I vividly recall the elephants raising on their hind legs and then leaning their front legs on the elephants ahead of them while beautiful women in feathers headdresses and sequins perched on their backs. I was awe struck!

In it's hey day the circus traveled by train and stopped at all the small and large towns along the way. Staying only one day and moving on. It was a spectacular event in every town. The massive event makes today's road shows look puny with a couple of semi trucks. We are talking rail cars filled with circus wagons. 5 wagons per rail car. Filled with exotic animals, costumes, people, tents, horses, blacksmith shops, kitchens in other words an entire city plus hundreds of horses to pull all the wagons and hundreds of people to put up the tents and keep the whole show moving along. The circus was so good and so efficient at logistics that the military studied how they did it!

Where is the art you might ask. The circus wagons were pieces of art filled with hand carved figures and painted with exciting scenes. The circus posters were used to advertise the circus was coming to your town and were papered like wall paper on walls of buildings in each town. Those that survive are worth a in fortune. It was a time when the circus owners lived in luxury, traveled the world and, like the Ringling's, collected everything from Greek artifacts to Peter Paul Rubens paintings. In addition to the Circus Museums there is an art museum housing their collection and their palatial estate all available for your enjoyment here in Sarasota Florida. Don't miss the experience if you are down this way.

2011 Another New Year

Taken with my i phone in NY.

I am welcoming the new year today and thinking back, as us old folks do, to how things have changed throughout our lives. Let's take radio. When I was growing up in Estes Park CO we couldn't get the Denver radio stations because we were in the mountains but at night we listened to KOMA in Oklahoma City that played the latest Rock and Roll! We missed a few curfews because of the time difference but we loved the music. Now we have I phones, that with a clever app, we can tune in radio stations throughout the world. Last night we were listening to a jazz station in Paris.

How about photography. I began taking pictures with a brownie box camera. Over the years I have used all sorts of cameras including slide cameras and even 8mm movie cameras as the kids were growing up. Now I use only digital cameras and the camera in my i phone that can send photos in a matter of seconds to friends and family. In order to salvage the early years of photos I now have to find someone to convert the slides to digital format, many are so old the film has darkened to just black blurs.

Then there is TV. The first television show I saw was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. One hotel in Estes Park had a TV and everyone was invited to come see this exciting broadcast. It was grainy black and white but we all thought it was amazing and wonderful. Now we are about to hook up a device to our HD TV that will allow us to use the internet on the TV so my husband can watch live streaming Nebraska football and other things we haven't even considered yet, because over 300 TV channels just isn't enough.

With the advent of Bluetooth we can have wireless keyboards and mice for our computers, ear roaches and hands free conversations in the car. We can have tiny stereo systems that will play the music or radio stations on our iphones.

We keep in touch with friends and family via facebook, email and digital photos. I even play scrabble with my daughter, who can be far away even traveling in foreign countries. I do have a couple of friends who don't own computers so we stay in touch the old fashioned way, letters written by hand and phone calls.

We are moving so fast that technology we buy today will be passe by Christmas. I wonder what new things these clever 20 something inventors will bring us this year.