THE BALLOON MAN

Some still long for circus life
Age-old traveling show passes through Boca Raton



The Cole Bros. Circus is at the Royal Palm Polo grounds until Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012.
By Ben Wolford, Sun Sentinel
November 9, 2012
BOCA RATON—
— They call it the city that travels by night.
The great American three-ring circus arrived here in the dark hours of Thursday morning. By 8:30 a.m. the tent was up. Eight hours later, ringmaster Chris Connors would say words he has said millions of times: "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls."
Traveling entertainment is as old as civilization. But in America, the circus is an emblem of the rugged individual, frozen in our imaginations somewhere between cowboys and railway hobos.
The modern circus is still a ticket to freedom and adventure. But it's also a lot of work. PETA hates you. And permitting the tents is a full-time job.
In the Cole Bros. Circus, which is at the Royal Palm Polo grounds until Sunday, that job belongs to Superstar Bill Dundee, the stage name for William Crookshanks.
The 69-year-old former pro-wrestler got into the entertainment business in 1960 when he joined the Bullens Circus in Australia as an elephant groomer. During the rainy season, they toured the bush by train and paraded into desert towns like an invading army.
These days, parades are usually code violations.
But "there are still a lot of kids in the States who still want to run away and join the circus," said Elvin Bale, 67, a human cannonball from London whose performing career ended after he broke his legs and back on an errant flight in Hong Kong. Now he recruits talent for Cole Bros.
"We just can't hire all the kids who want to do it," Bale said. Recently, he hired a lucky young clown they call Meatball, who filled a sudden opening. "I had just lost a clown who went on his own. He wanted to do parties and stuff."

 ( Sun Sentinel/Joe Cavaretta / November 9, 2012 )
Baby Hugo eats brerakfast Thursday. Nov. 8, 2012, at the Polo Grounds in Boca Raton for the Cole Brothers Circus.
Meatball is the nearest modern equivalent to a runaway (he showed up with his mom and asked for a gig). But most circus performers are either born into circus families or come up through formal circus training — people "who have found a vocation in what had been an avocation," as circus expert Ernest Albrecht put it.
Bale's father and grandfather were in the circus. So were Kellan Bermudez's. The 37-year-old Ecuadorean is a daredevil with Cole Bros. He spent his youth traveling South and Central America with his acrobat father and aerial ballerina mother. Now, his 9-year-old son, Keyan, follows him around the United States.

 

( Sun Sentinel/Joe Cavaretta / November 9, 2012 )
Julius Carallo, who performs as Chips the Clown is seen Thursday. Nov. 8, 2012, at the Polo Grounds in Boca Raton for the Cole Brothers Circus.

Nine months of the year, Bermudez, Connors and more than 100 other stage hands and talent roam the east coast, hopping to from town to town under the big top, as they say in the business. Unlike at Cirque du Soleil and Ringling Bros., which book arenas, these guys are proud to say they still erect a tent wherever they go, and they smirk when local inspectors kick the stakes.
After a Sunday matinee the stakes will come up and the tent will come down. The traveling city will head to Fort Myers, driving west into the setting sun.