WHITE LINE FEVER

After you travel a million miles in a truck everything starts to become a blur. Most Butchers were truck drivers, they didn't get paid for it but it was more or less expected of them. I've seen some wild wrecks and have even been in a couple of them. I didn't drive a Semi but I always navigated, that way I had the option to jump if the need ever came up.And mostly I would only navigate, read maps and watch for the arrows (convoy markers) either with whoever was driving the concession truck or the Butchers sleeper. The Concession truck had priority because if it didn't get to the lot then I didn't make money. Next best was the sleeper, if it broke down I could go to my bunk and sleep. Have to be logical about this. Someone said, "Why don't you sleep going over the road?"
No thanks, first of all I've seen trucks turn over, once the sleeper went on its side and there were about 6 butchers sleeping in it, they were all bruised up and could hardly work for a couple of weeks.Secondly, it irritates the driver to think some asshole is in the trailer sleeping while he has to drive several hours down the road. I've seen drivers purposely hit potholes to try and wake people up.
 All kinds of things happen going down the road. There was a midget on the Beatty Show who drove a semi. He had the pedals built up with blocks of wood so he could push the pedals. The Fuzz pulled him over one night for a bad taillight and they were shocked to see midget driving such a huge truck.
He wasnt the only midget who drove a truck, there was another one on the Beatty Show who was a driver and the sideshow giant always road shotgun with him, it always caused a lot of murmuring when they would pull into a truck stop.  Whenever they came in I would try to leave as soon as possible. They were both kleptomaniacs and I figured it was just a matter of time before they created a Heat Score.
 Saw many a truck broke down on the highway, they would try fix it themselves or wait for the show mechanic. The best mechanic I ever saw was Pete Sadowski from South Carolina. One night I saw him and his helper take a cracked engine block out of a GMC and replace it in two hours.
We saw a truck pulled over beside the highway one night and the police were talking to the driver. We stopped and asked if we could help. The cop said, " This truck has a red lens missing from the back stop light and he can't move till its fixed." About that time Pete the mechanic pulled up and the cop told him the same thing, so he rummaged through his truck but couldn't find a lens, so he went into his camper and came backwith a bottle of his wifes fingernail polish, painted the bulb red and said , "There officer, its red now, we only have twenty miles to go, will that work till I can get a lens tomorrow?"
The cop laughed and said, "Yeh you can go".
Mechanics never get to sleep at night.
So many things happen on the road... going out of winter quarters they always call a meeting of truck drivers to brief them about going from town to town. Follow the arrows (convoy markers), arrow pointing up go straight ahead, two arrows down and an arrow to the left or right...prepare to turn in that direction. One arrow down and an arrow to the left or right... turn here. three arrows down and chalk letters saying LG means Low Gear (steep hill).  Sometimes punks would tear the arrows down, sometimes rain and wind would loosen them. The drivers would receive a route slip stating which roads would take them to the lot in the next town. The Cristiani show had flourescent red arrows but the highway patrol stopped the 24 hour man from putting them up in a few places and they had to go to plain dark red arrows. The Sells and Gray show had the same type arrows and we crossed paths with them a couple of times and a couple of trucks wound up on their lot without realizing where they were till the next morning.
 One night on the Beatty Show we played a town in New Hampshire and the lot was at the bottom of a hill, there was a car wash next to the lots entrance, at the top of the hill was a doughnut shop, when we arrived there we decided to get some coffee and doughnuts. There were four or five trucks parked out front who's drivers had the same idea. While we were drinking coffee one of the drivers looked out the window and said, "Oh shit!! My truck."  It had popped out of gear and was rapidly rolling downhill, too late, it couldnt be stopped and it plowed into the car wash, demolishing it.
 The next year we played the same town and I was riding with Pico in the Concession truck, we decided to stop for coffee at the same doughnut shop, while drinking coffee I said, " Remember that wreck that happened here last year?" Yeah", he said, "It really screwed up that car wash".
All of a sudden the guy at the end of the counter said, "Damn, there goes my truck".
It had jumped out of gear and was barrelling downhill and smashed into the rebuilt carwash.
 The next year we were playing the same town but the night before we pulled out of the preceding town The manager called all drivers to a meeting and said, " Anyone that stops at that doughnut shop in the next time will be immediately ran off the show.... with a black eye."   Oh well, doughnuts are fattening anyway.
 We were in Pennsylvania one night and Pico missed the arrows and turned the wrong way and went under a railroad trestle that was one foot lower than the trailer. He peeled the roof of the concession trailer back about 6 feet... right over the concession managers office.
A butcher called GooGoo (because he wore thick glasses) was riding with him that night. Pico didn't have a drivers license so he jumped out of the cab of the truck and told GooGoo, " When the cops come tell them ,the driver screwed, you don't remember my name, it was Tom or something like that".
"OK," says GooGoo.  So Tom went to a bar across the street and got a beer and returned standing amongst the crowd gawking at the truck stuck under the trestle, saying things like, "Well look at that, Can you believe that", etc. Then the cops showed up asking who the driver was and GooGoo said, "I was riding in the truck but the driver ran away." What was his name?" asked the cop.
GooGoo said, " I don't know his full name but he called himself Pico".
Pico gulped his beer and walked away. The management told him don't drive till we get out of Pennsylvania.
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We were going through Canada and had some long jumps, someone said, it's three hundred miles tonight and theres only one truck stop about halfway to the next town. So we pulled into it and half the show trucks were there along with a few local truckers. When I walked in I knew it was going to be a problem, Frank the sword swallower had a beefsteak in his hand and he was beating the cash register with it saying, " You couldnt cut this moosemeat with an axe and I'm not paying for it". Several people just walked out.
Later I heard the Mounties stopped a couple of show trucks and made them pay for the meals even though they hadnt stopped there.
 Sometimes there would be cases of mistaken identity because the trucks were all painted the same. One night I saw Jack the Ripper miss the turn and he tried backing up to the turn and hit a light pole knocking it down. We could see the town from the hill where the turn was and half the lights in town went out.
Later on the cops stopped weird Harold the prop guy and charged him with knocking the pole down.
A few weeks later going through Ohio we came around a bend and there were flares everywhere, Pico said, "Damn, must be a hell of a wreck ahead." When we got to it, it was weird Harold, he was dazed and walking around and the truck was hangig over a bridge. Jack the Ripper was directing traffic with two flares, we discovered that he was flare happy, he loved lighting them. Weird Harold was completely drunk, so I looked in his truck cab and there were empty Mickey bottles all over it and in the glove compartment. Pico and I started throwing them in the river so the cops wouldnt find them but to no avail, when they got there and looked at Harold they knew he was drunk.
 The cop told Jack, "its a good thing you were here with flares, go to the trunk of my patrol car and replace what you used". Jack opened the trunk, there was a case of flares...he took them all.
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Leaving Deland one year and making the run to Long Island, we took off and headed North. made a few rest stops for coffee but kept going for three days. When we were in New Jersey, it was about 3 in the morning and we were both pretty zombified, I looked at Pico and he was driving with his eyes closed and we were in the left lane of a two lane blacktop. So I said, very calmly, " Hey Pico, You don't want to die do you?" Groggilly he said, "No, why?"
I replied, "because you're in the wrong lane and your eyes are closed"
His eyes popped open and he said, "Oh".  I suggested that we stop at the next truck stop and sleep a couple of hours.
 Years later he told me, " Remember that night? If you had started yelling I would've probably run off the road.... Sometimes I get to thinking about things like that and I break out laughing. I'm sure some of the guys that work for me think I'm nuts"

MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF MONKEYS

While working props on the Cristiani show I came in contact with the chimps, the owners wife had the chimp act and she always tipped me for helping her with her props which consisted of small chairs, a table, a small sliding board and tricycles.

She smoked cigarettes and had to be careful not to set a cigarette down and turn her back or the chimps would pick it up and start smoking it. And they wouldn’t take small puffs they would inhale it all at once and the cigarette would burn all the way down to the filter in less than two seconds.

Captain Harry was in charge of the Animal Department on the show and sometimes the chimps would act up and run up the center pole and refuse to come down. Then it would become a good cop bad cop routine between Norma and Captain Harry to try to get the chimps down, Norma would be saying, “come down my sweet baby”, and if that didn’t swerve them Harry would be there saying , “come down you rotten sonofabitch or I’ll break your stupid simian neck”. Sometimes it would be worse than that and Norma would tell Harry, “Remember there are children present Harry” . That would be difficult for Harry when he had a hold of the chimps arm and the chimp was sinking his teeth into Harry’s hand.

Chimpanzees as they grow older become more unmanageable, I’ve been told their brains grow faster than their skulls and this causes them to get crazy. I don’t know if that’s true but I do know they get very hard to handle and eventually they have to be permanently caged.

They had a pit show on the Cristiani show featuring the “wild man from Borneo” , It had a double cage on one side was a kid dressed in a loin cloth like Tarzan and on the other side was an unmanageable large chimp. The kid would put up the pit show then change into his costume until it was time to tear down the show, then he would drive the truck to the next town.

One night as we were getting ready to settle up in the concessions wagon I a lot of screaming and looked out of the concession office door to see the chimp had escaped its cage and was running down the midway. It jumped up on the counter of the hot dog stand and grabbed about a dozen hotdogs and bit into them.

I had the popcorn stand at the time and was in the office with my friend Pat who had the cotton candy stand and the concession manager, Never Worry Murray.
“I think the hotdog stand may come up short tonight”, I told Murray.

We kept counting the days take when suddenly the chimp ran up the steps and entered the office with us. Suddenly the door slammed and I heard someone say, “we got him trapped inside”.

It was a terrifying scene, the chimp was scared and screaming because he knew he had done something wrong. We looked at him and he looked at us, he screamed and bared his fangs, they looked like Count Dracula’s to me, all three of us crept into a corner as far from the chimp as we could get. To no avail, the chimp grabbed a box of cracker jacks and bit right through the box. “Let him have anything he wants, boys”, said Murray.

I could just imagine that chimp biting me, I started looking for an escape route, there weren’t any. I saw a barrel of peanuts in the corner I said, “Hey Murray, how about if I empty that barrel and put it over my head?” “Leave the peanuts alone”, said Murray”

The concession truck had shelves on both sides with concession equipment and stock, I climbed up on the shelves as high as possible in hopes of getting away from the chimp, the chimp followed me whining and screaming as if to say help me, help me. I climbed down and got back behind the peanut barrel.

The office door suddenly flew open and the chimps owner came in and the door slammed again before we could get out. The chimps owner had a rope and a club in his hand. “Come here, nice monkey”, he said.

The chimp wasn’t going for that line of talk, he knew better, he ran screaming to the far end of the truck. He was really wild now. “If I cant’t catch him I’ll whack him,”, said the owner. He raised the club and the chimp started screaming.

I’m beating on the door, yelling “let us out of here”.When someone outside, it turned out to be Congo the bigtop hand, cracked the door open and said, “What’s going on in there?”

That was what we were waiting for, Murray, Pat and myself hit the door and sent Congo flying. They slammed the door and left the chimp inside with his owner.

As we were brushing ourselves off, Steve the balloon man came by, he didn’t know what was happening, he asked Murray, “wheres my balloons”. Murray told him, “one things for sure, you will not be selling any balloons tonight”. I said, “Murray, we left all the money laying on the desk in there”.

“Let the monkey have it “, he said, taking a big drink from a half pint of rum he had in his coat.

Finally the owner managed to get a rope around the chimp and return him to his cage but it was a night long remembered by many people .

Later on I heard Pat telling someone,”Bob’s a regular spiderman, you should’ve seen how fast he climbed to the roof of the office.”



We had another chimp that had to be caged all the time, we went into winter quarters in Florida and the caged animals were kept in the back part of the grounds where Captain Harry would go around and feed them every day. We were painting trucks and repairing equipment when a friend said , “look at that”. I loked over to see Harry at the chimps cage, he would open a door at the bottom of the cage just big enough to get a tray of food through. He opened the door after setting the tray down, then leaned over to pick up the tray, we saw the chimps arm come out the tray slot and slap Harry right on the top of his bald head and down he went. Harry jumped up with his fists balled up., the chimp jumped to the back of his cage, probably grinning.

“You…you…you.. “ said Harry, all red faced and in a rage, “I’ll show you, I won’t feed you for the rest of the winter, you rotten no good asshole, you're gonna starve” .

Everybody that saw it was dying laughing.



We were in winter quarters and had a month before hitting the road again. My friend Gary the snake show operater decided to get a room at the hotel across the street from winter quarters. I went over to see him one afternoon and as I neared his room I saw his spider monkey chained to a post out front. I knocked on his door and he opened it and said, “Hey Bob, come in and have a drink”. I told him I didn’t think the motel owners liked guests having pets and the monkey would probably create heat for him. Gary grinned and said, “I like heat”.

I sat down with a rum and coke and while we were watching the evening news we heard a horrible screeching scream. We ran out the door to discover the monkey had climbed the pole he was chained to and had grabbed the neon sign on the rooftop. Blue sparks and smoke was flying off the monkeys fur. Gary was aghast, “my monkey, my Monkey”, he yelled. He looked around and saw a mop leaning against a wall, he picked it up and swung at the monkey knocking it loose from the neon sign , breaking the M on the motel sign.

We took the monkey in and gave it some water and after a few minutes it seemed to be recovering. “Well, you said you like heat, looks like you got plenty now”, I told him.

Gary, scratched his head and said, “Guess I’ll have to pay for the neon sign”. The sign now said “OTEL”. I returned to winter quarters, the next day Gary came over, I asked him, “Did you have to pay for the sign or did they tell you to get out”?

“Neither”, he said, “they said oh, the poor monkey, we hope its ok.”

But after that we could hardly get near the monkey it would try to bite us if we got close to it, I guess he associated us with that jolt of electricity that surged through his brain.

There was a cute waitress at the hotel who had a crush on Gary, he told me a few days later that she had come by his room and he was in bed with her giving her a passionate kiss when the monkey came flying across the room and landed on his bare ass.
The waitress said,”Isn’t that sweet, he’s trying to protect me”.
Shortly thereafter we were leaving winter quarters for our opening spot. I saw Gary and asked him where his monkey was.
“I gave that little trouble maker to the waitress at the motel”, he said.

FEARFUL FELINES

We had been in winter quarters for several weeks, Pete Cristiani, the shows owner had four or five lions in cages waiting for a lion trainer, who’s name I can’t recall now, to show up and break the lions in for an act when we were to go on the road. His wife Norma had put an ad in the local paper asking for athletic girls who would like to travel with the show to come and learn aerial ballet routines on velvet ropes and swinging ladders. About 25 girls showed up and began training. The first few days of breaking in had left them with sore muscles and they were having troubles climbing up the ropes.

Pete became impatient waiting for the lion trainer to show up so he told me and my buddy Jackie to put up the steel arena in back.

“I’ll train them myself “’ he said.

“Have you ever put up this steel arena”, Jackie asked me.” Well no, not this one, but I guess we can figure it out”, I told him. We started putting it together and everything went well until we got to the last section and there was a small gap of about eight or nine inches at the bottom. “What do you think we should do with this?”, I asked. “It’s not very big let’s just close it off with baling wire”, he said. So we wired it together.

Pete came out with a whip and a pistol loaded with blanks and entered the cage.

“Let them loose”, he said. We opened the chute cage door and the lions, who had be penned up all winter came rushing out roaring and running around Pete in a big circle as he cracked the whip and shot the pistol in the air. It was one of those times I thought years later, if only video cameras had been invented earlier, it was hilarious. But not for long, one of the lions saw that tiny gap and hit it breaking out and was now loose in winter quarters. Pete managed to roust the other lions back in their cages. “Go tell Norma to make the kids get in the house”, he told me. I ran to the front of winter quarters to Pete’s house and told Norma the lion was loose and to get the kids inside. I ran back to the steel arena on the way I noticed all 25 of those ballet girls with sore muscles had climbed up trees.

Everybody was at the far corner of winter quarters, Jackie came up with some rope, he handed one to me, “Maybe we can lasso it”, he said. Now that I think back about it, we must’ve been out of my minds.

The lion had run into a bunch of bushes, we could hear him panting, There was an old guy named Red who was painting scroll work on the trucks with us, “Is he in there?”, he asked. About that time the lion came roaring out at us and as he got to us he leaped over us, Red fell backwards and fainted, we never had time to try to lasso him.

The lion was headed towards the front, the only place where there was no gate. “We’ve got to stop him from running out the front gate”, yelled Pete.

With all the commotion, someone at the bar across the street had called the police and there were three  police officers out front with shotguns.

The lion stopped by the barn to rest and Jackie and I, ran to the front gate picking up anything we could find to try and defend ourselves we grabbed a hoe and a rake. We went to the front gate and here came the lion, it was ten feet from us and we were waving the rake and hoe and yelling, the lion stopped and went back about twenty feet and laid down panting from exhaustion of being ran around for almost an hour.

I heard one of the Police say if it got through the gate they would shoot him.

Meanwhile, Pete had called Pat Anthony, a well known lion trainer who lived a couple of miles away and Pat came walking through the gate, Pete asked him, “Do you think we can get this lion caged?”

Pat said, “get a cage and set it as close as you can to the lion”. Some bigtop hands brought out a cage and sat it about twenty feet from the lion. Pat told Jackie, me and six other working men to get some plywood that was stacked by the mechanics shop and to hold them up, four pieces each side of the cage forming a funnel shape. Pat walked around to the other side of the lion and said, “SHOO KITTY”. And the lion went right into the cage. And that ended my career as a cowboy in Africa.



WILD CARGO ON THE LOOSE



The Kelly Miller Circus had more wild animals than any other show, in fact they billed themselves as the world’s largest wild animal circus.

While in winter quarters they had a few lions in cages but no trailer to load them on so someone had the bright idea to modify an old house trailer into a cage wagon by tearing the upper portion away and just leaving the frame.

Going down the highway I would see that trailer’s back end bouncing up and down under the weight of the las cages that were loaded on and I thought to myself, “just a matter of time till a cage bounces off.”

And sure enough one day going through a town in New England it happened, spilling the cages in the center of town. Only one of the cage doors popped open and a black maned Nubian lion was walking through the streets as much in panic as the local citizenry. It ran into a local department store and caused an immediate evacuation. Luckily Captain Freddy Logan was close at hand and ran in after it with a net and a rope and was able to capture it with no problems.

It caused quite a stir in the local paper and that afternoon it seemed everyone in town had heard about the lion caught in ladies lingerie.

At the evening performance we had a standing room only crowd, I started wondering if we should let the lion escape in every town.