This weekend in Milwaukee was pretty busy. Bastille Days, which is a big party downtown over four days. Ruth and I met my sister there and caught a great band called Jimmy and the Saints. Rockabilly type stuff. Had a great time.

Also this weekend was "The Great Circus Parade". We went down to the lake front on Saturday and checked out out all the wagons, pet the weird animals and generally had a whole lot of good clean fun. We stopped to eat, and that's when we met Oscar.

Oscar was trying to get a couple hot dogs and take a break. And the kids would just not leave him alone! Which brought about such wonderful quotes as " A clown's gotta eat too ya know!" , and " I'll be clowning again in a little while".

Oscar finally got his food and sat down with us. We were the only table without kids you see. The first words out of his mouth were "Damn mustard is murder on these gloves". He proceeded to tell my sister how much he loves red heads. We were then treated to a nice little story of a job he had in Michigan. During the course of this job apparently some kids stole a prop flower." Damn little bastards". The owner of the place didn't seem to care. "Damn cheap bastard!" He went on to tell us of his years of clowning and how under appreciated he feels. We also learned how much work goes into making a clown Costume "Damn sewing machines" We tried to seem sympathetic, but you know?, he chose this life. And also it was just damn hard not to laugh. Over all, I get the impression that most people must be "rotten bastards" .

As we got up to leave and wished him good luck in the parade I heard him mutter "Shit, not again" as a hot dog rolled down the front of his ruffles.

And so we left Oscar in his misery and enjoyed petting lamas and giraffes and Scottish cattle. We stepped in elephant poop, we laughed at non-bitter clowns.

We had fun.

We also enjoyed the parade the next day. The wagons, the bands, the little kids around us, even the guys shoveling poop every now and then (they got applause).

A great weekend and a wonderful time. Even Oscar seemed happy during the parade.

But I'm sure he was thinking to himself "Damn my feet hurt....rotten Bastards"

Jon

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It's a beautiful day . . . Don't let it get away