THE BALLOON MAN

MANE ATTRACTION

Circus attendees enjoy ‘a little bit of Americana’ in Harrisburg

Amanda Smith/For The Register-Guard

Trey the lion tamer gets a bit of an attitude in the form of a tongue from Francis the lion during the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus in Harrisburg on Saturday afternoon.

By Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

Published:Sunday, May 29, 2011

HARRISBURG, OREGON — Maybe it wasn’t death-defying, and you probably couldn’t call it the greatest show on earth. But for a few hours Saturday, the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus was the greatest thing in Harrisburg.
Maybe, even, the greatest thing in a long time.
This was real Americana, the kind of circus your grandparents or even great-grandparents remember. One ring, some big animals, some little animals, jugglers and trapeze artists, a dog act, the flying Perez family and, naturally, a clown. Oh, and sequins. Lots of sequins.
“It’s nice to see that an operation like this is still going,” said Harrisburg City Manager Bruce Cleeton. “It’s a little bit of Americana I remember as a youngster, and I’m glad we can make some memories for the Harrisburg kids now.”
And those kids ate it up like popcorn. Or cotton candy, which both found plenty of eager takers among the 200 or so people to pack the big top for the first of two shows.

America Molina (center), her sister Bineet Molina (just left of center) and mother Alma Molina clap and laugh at the entertainment during the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus. Amanda Smith/For The Register-Guard
For many people, especially the young ones, it was either their first time ever at a circus or their first in a very long time. Relatively few in the crowd remember when Harrisburg used to have regular Fourth of July circuses, mainly because the last one was about 40 years ago.
“We’ve never had a circus since I was here, so I think it’s pretty neat to bring it into a small town,” said Peggie Walter, who brought 2-year-old Destiny to the show.
There were plenty of “ooh” and “ahh” moments, such as when Solomon the lion leaped from his cage and into the ring with a pair of tigers.
Or when Natalie Cainan got one of her trained dogs to push another around the ring in a cart. Or when Karina Perez managed to get about two dozen hoops spinning around her from head to toe.
Clearly, the circus still is a family affair, which is why the acts seemed to have a lot of familiar faces. The guy hawking cotton candy and souvenirs in the stands one minute was riding a 10-foot-tall unicycle in the ring the next and steadying the rope for his aerialist daughter before that.
They were part of the Dykes family, a longtime circus clan that in addition to the rope act — known as a web act in circus lingo — also worked the trapeze act, bird act and a family unicycle act. Members of the Perez family include jugglers, hoop artists and aerialists.
Angel Perez wowed the crowed with a Russian Swing act. That’s a contraption with a two-man platform on something like a playground swing that launches one person high into the tent and into a net.
Part of the big finalé was Angel Perez flying through a small hoop hung from the upper reaches of the tent. Sure, he missed it the first time, but that only made it that much more exciting when he nailed the second try.
“It’s good, clean entertainment,” said Gary Keller of Junction City. “I think they really put on a good show.”
Young Christian Molina, 10, and his 7-year-old sister America, gave their first circus raves.
“I think it’s pretty cool,” Christian said.
A huge downpour that hammered the big top so loudly it almost drowned out the circus music didn’t dampen the day for anyone, except maybe a few performers who had to run between trailers during the deluge. Soggy ground in the city’s new Priceboro Park, the advertised location for the show, already had forced a last-minute move to a gravel lot at Harrisburg High School.
The shows helped raise money both for the new park and the Harrisburg Elementary School Parent Club. But they also reminded people what it’s like to see a live, traveling show, a kind of entertainment that may be short on glitz but that’s long on charm.
And more than a few left hoping that it’s not 40 years before the next one.
“I want to come back,” said 11-year-old Jared Roberson.