The Circus

It was the early nineteen seventies and the circus was coming to town.  My sister and I begged my mother to go with the usual chorus of:

"All our friends are going!".

My mother did not approve of animals being made to do tricks for people but when she found out there would be no animal acts she relented.  We were so excited!

Back then Ottawa did not have a lot of performance venues so most outings like the Ice Capades and the Circus went to Landsdowne Park.  That part of town was central to our lives because it was also near the only shopping mall we could get to from our subdivision on one bus.

The week the circus came to town  my sister and I sat spellbound in our seats.  There was the usual parade of clowns but the centrepiece of this show was the trapeze act.  We watched as lithe men and women performed tricks mid-air. and walked the tightrope.  There was a safety net underneath the ropes but not the platform.

At one point during the performance we heard a loud crack.  One of the polls that held the tight rope jolted and the trapeze artist standing on the platform fell backwards onto the cement floor.

There was a hushed silence.  Then a voice called out through a megaphone:

"Is there a doctor in the house"?

The lights went up and the performance, for that night, was halted.  The Circus resumed performances the next night.  My friends who saw it told us how the show was supposed to end with the strong men spinning the trapeze artists in his arms, somehow carrying them all.

We found out later the trapeze artist broke her back and was paralyzed from the waist down.  The local paper ran a follow-up story a year after the accident.  She was a smiling, pretty blonde, coping as best she could with her disability.

We lost any desire for circus performances after that.  I am just grateful the Cirque du Soleil has no animal acts - and lots of safety equipment.

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