The circus is pulling out of town for good and I wonder if anyone will miss it. I don't think I will. Clowns really are scary. Traveling sideshows are going the way of compact discs and Harry Houdini, they are disappearing from a very politically correct world, a world of parents that don't want to see their children laugh at the freaks. And they're right. Traveling Circuses and Sideshows have been taking advantage of differences and stereotypes for centuries it's about time we abolish those practices. But man for some reason it strikes me as sad to see them go.

Where will the freaks land? Pardon the term, but I'm sure it takes some degree of self-realization and acceptance to travel around under a banner bearing that name. Will the Gorilla Women make your deli sandwich? Will the flame swallower become a fireman? What about the clowns? What will they do without a painted face and a roomier car?

There is definitely a sort of romance that goes hand in hand with the traveling sideshow and it's a shame that image is destined to become a memory. But isn't that the route of all romantic images? Don't they always seem in your head to be colored in such a particularly beautiful way, but then when you see them in daylight through reality's lenses you are appalled? I remember going to see a rodeo once when I was out west for the first time. It was a family vacation and it seemed like the "real Americana thing to do," at least it did to my parents who dragged me there. But I won't lie, I was interested, I wanted to see what this whole western frontier was like, I wanted to see the show that made Buffalo Bill a legend. And I did see it, and I was appalled.

It's horrible the way rodeos treat animals and it's horrible the way sideshows take advantage of people, both the audience and the performers.  The only reason I feel nostalgic about sideshows is because I've never seen one. I'm nostalgic for the way they are represented in books, in movies, in history. But by today's standards, by my own standards, I'm sure I would very much like to see them disappear and only exist in fictionalized accounts.

Things change, and what is common today will be looked at by our progeny as detestable.