Better Homes & Elephants In Gardens

Hello everyone, Steve Copeland here. Well, well, well, where to begin? It has been a very eventful week here in Baraboo!

The town and Circus World was the subject of national news when Kelly, one of our performing pachyderms, escaped the park in the early hours of the morning. Our other elephant, Isla, is quite adept with her trunk, and she loosened some hardware that allowed Kelly to slip out. Kelly walked across the Baraboo River and then started wandering around a nearby neighborhood. Several people spotted her as they went about their morning routines, and so calls were placed to Circus World to let us know that one of our biggest stars was going door to door to let people know the park  is still open!

Dean, who is in charge of the elephants, went to retrieve her from the yard of an elderly lady whose flowers seemed like an all you can eat buffet for Kelly.

Kelly was escorted safely back to Circus World, and the whole escapade was the talk of the town.

I don’t know what the big deal is. Ryan and I have been wandering around people’s yards every night this summer, but the second an elephant does it, CNN gets involved!

The whole thing was excellent publicity for Circus World’s Anniversary Days, where we were celebrating our 58th Anniversary by offering $5 admission to our guests for four days only: July 1-4. As you can imagine, the park was super busy every day, especially on Monday, when there were around 1,400 people in the park. The big top was filled beyond capacity, and another tiger show was added alongside Nothing But Nonsense to accommodate the large crowds.

Photo by Oliver Ramos

That’s right, I said tiger show! Ryan Holder, or Radar as Ryan and I affectionately call him, is here again this summer. He has been touring with the Carden Circus all season, but began performing here on July 1 and will be with us through the end of our season since Carden is on a planned two month hiatus. 

Ryan and I have known Radar since we were all First of Mays on the Kelly Miller Circus back in 2009. He started as a tiger groom and went on to inherit the tigers, the equipment, and the act, and he has really come into his own as a tiger trainer and person who really loves and cares for his animals. 

It was wonderful having such big crowds for our shows during Anniversary days. Nothing But Nonsense was particularly fun, as the rowdy audiences gave us plenty of opportunities to improvise. One memorable occurrence happened when our Borscht-Belt era ventriloquist dummy character, Kreplach, was having his big death scene. Right in the middle of it, someone’s cell phone rang, so I, puppeteering Kreplach, ran up into the audience, demanded she hand the phone over, and then as Kreplach, mercilessly berated the person on the other end of the line. I wish I could know what that poor person on the receiving end of a puppet tirade was thinking!

On Tuesday, Ryan’s daughter, Abrianna, all decked out in her patriotic best for the Fourth of July, made her debut in Wesley William’s unicycle act. Abrianna absolutely adores Wesley (or Bruce-Lee, as she calls him), and occasionally he will put her on his shoulders as he is practicing on his unicycle backstage.

During the morning show on the 4th of July he rode into the ring with Abrianna sitting on his shoulders. Tatiana said that Abrianna looked petrified as they rode out, but as soon as Wesley put her on the ground, she styled like a true circus pro.

Wesley said the next day when he was about to ride his unicycle out for opening, he made eye contact with Abrianna, who shook her head and said, “Not me! Not me!”

On the home front, Pamela has been working hard to make our home as beautiful and cozy as she can. Last summer she spent a couple of weeks completely redoing the inside; she painted, she put down new flooring, and installed new hardware on the cabinets and drawers.

Every season she re-decorates our dinette area, and this summer’s decor is one of my favorites. It is so elegant and calming; I love it!

But my wonder woman didn’t stop with the inside of the trailer. She also created a nice dining area right outside our front door using things found around Circus World. 

We have hosted several dinners for our friends, and Pamela pulls out all the stops to make everything as fancy as possible. We put out our fine silverware and glasses, candles, an ice bucket, napkin rings, and I even manage to keep my feet off the table! 

Pamela’s dinner parties are beautiful, but they sure are a lot of work to set up and clean up! Perfection is important to my wife though, and she works like crazy to make everything perfect for me.

I’m hoping one day she will share her talents with the world by having her own show on HGTV. In the meantime, I will enjoy having a beautiful wife and home to come to every day after work. 

That’s about all the news that’s fit to print for this week! As always, if there’s anything you’d like to hear about in this blog, please let me know in the comments!  See you all next week!