Kindergarten fans judge circus by snow cones and swords
Considering I'm not a big fan of the circus, it's significant that I attended two in the past few weeks. We went to the El Riad Shrine Circus in Sioux Falls last month and a lso to the traveling outfit that stopped at the Armory last week.
Both versions offered free tickets to kids at school, but that's where the similarities ended.
The Shriners put on a fantastic three-ring show in the Arena, which was viewed by a sold-ou t crowd with a median age of 7.
The three-hour event featured glittering trapeze artists, dancing elephants, bicycling bears, hilarious clowns and the whole shebang.
Luverne's version last week featured three rows of sparsely-filled folding chairs circ l i ng a single ring in the middle of the floor in the National Guard Armory.
The hour-long show included limited acrobatics, magic stunts, an unpainted clown, a handful of pigeons and ducks.
The adults in the crowd eyed each other with raised brows. N o o ne actually said it, but our looks translated to something like, "We paid $9.50 for this? It's a good thing the kids had free tickets."
I'm glad the big people kept their comments to themselves, because the little people had a ball. The clown selec t ed v ol unteer children from the audience to hoola hoop with him, and he played practical jokes at their expense - to their delight.
They shrieked with laughter when the bumbling chef couldn't keep up with his pans twirling on poles. And broken eggs f rom a faile d juggling act appealed to their grade-school sense of humor.
It sure wasn't the Shrine Circus, but in their minds it was a class act. They left with smiles on their faces, cotton candy stuck on their fingers and cheeks and balloons and other ci r cus paraphernalia in hand to prove they'd been there.
It struck me how, despite our best efforts, kids really are easy to please.
While we were at the Shrine Circus in Sioux Falls, I noticed how many of the quality acts were wasted on Jonathan and his c ousi ns. Once they had lighted circus swords, it seemed nothing could top the entertainment of a rousing fencing match among themselves and the good-sported hot-dog guy that wondered into their battle zone.
As far as a kindergartner is concerned, the sno w con es t asted as sweet in the Armory as they did in the Arena, and pretty girls in sparkling costumes are just as fun to watch with pigeons as they are with dancing elephants.
The lesson in all this? Don't judge a circus by its number of rings, bu t rather b y its ability to captivate audience members - as undiscriminating as they may be.
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