Saturday, March 17, 2007

My favorite question...WHAT DID YOU DO DURING SUMMER VACATION FROM SCHOOL?

Yes that's me and my oldest brother! My three brothers and sister and I belonged to the Wenatchee Youth Circus while we were in school. I traveled and preformed with the Circus for ten years. What an incredible life it was! There were about 100 of us kids and a lot of the parents came along as chaperone's. We usually left the first week after school was out and traveled all over the upper Western U.S. performing in many small towns during the summer. The performers setup the equipment then tore it down in the evening after each show then loaded up in the OLD red school bus and off we went to the next scheduled town.

My brother Dave and I are performing on what is called the Double Trapeze and hanging by our necks was one of the tricks we performed on the Double Trapeze.

This act was called the Roly Boly. Several of us did tricks while balancing and walking on these balls. I am walking a ball over a teeter toter and just beginning my descent. Also picture are Colleen, Kathe and Cynthia. Yes, that's me performing on The Low Wire using an umbrella for balance. Also pictured are Kathy, Barbara, Charlie and the MC is Russ.
This act is called the Swinging Ladders. Someone stood below keeping the ladder swinging as we performed various tricks. My right hand is through a loop attached to the ladder and we also hung by our feet through this strap.
This is another part of the Roly Boly act where we balanced on this small board while juggling, or as you can see, while holding a small child on my shoulders. Karen is assisting for safety and Margie is on my shoulders.

Besides the above acts, I also performed in the Juggling act, Spanish Web, and the Roman Ladders. I will post these pictures next time.

Yes, I do believe I had the most incredible childhood of anyone I know. We traveled to Oregon, Idaho, California, Montana, Canada, and even flew to Alaska to perform and of course all over the state of Washington where we all lived. We also performed in the Seattle Worlds Fair for several weeks and met many celebrities who came to watch us perform. All of this was made possible by our school counselor/principal who started it as a gym class and it just grew and grew! We had our 50th year Circus reunion in Wenatchee in 2003 and the turnout for it was fantastic. Oh, the memories. We were just like one huge family and it is still wonderful to get together and talk about "the good old days" because to us they truly were!!!

So, what did you do during YOUR summer vacation???

2 comments:

Jennifer AKA keewee said...

Hostagirl. I had forgotten this was something you did during summer vacation, thanks for the pictures to remind me. They are wonderful.

Ginco said...

Hostagirl, those are remarkable pictures, and what lovely memories of your youth !! Have you ever thought of joining the circus as a trapeze artist ??
My summer vacations were not as exciting as yours, but for as long as I can remember, the time was always spent with my Grandparents on the farm in Oudtshoorn (SA)
My Grandfather had a whole bunch of ostriches - and me being nuts about animals, I enjoyed watching them for hours on end, and learning about their odd ways from Granddad.
Being an only child, it was an absolute thrill to spend so much time with my many cousins living on that farm. Gone forever are those goood days!!!!

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