Me and Smith.

 



The recent retirement of Steve Smith from the Clown Emeritus program, due to poor scheduling, brings back a flood of memories.  Well . . . a dribble, anyways.


We first met at the Ringling Clown College back in 1971.  Steve was one of my classmates – and the only one to pass out ‘good luck’ cards from Hallmark to every student who was competing for a coveted spot on the Red or Blue units as a First of May.  Right away, I liked his Ohio-bred genteel style.


Oh, the gags we pulled on the Blue Unit that first heady year!  And not just on the audience.

There was the time we blew up balloons in the sleeves of the entire male wardrobe just before Spec.

Or the quarters we superglued to the cement floor of clown alley, in the hopes that Stanley & Lester, midget clowns and dedicated misers, would get a hernia trying to pry them lose. (They got a cold chisel from somewhere and chipped them off!)

The night the bear got loose and Smith thought everyone was screaming “mare loose!”


We studied pantomime together in Mexico with Sigfrido Aguilar.


We worked together as the advance clowns for a season, right before my LDS mission to Thailand for 2 years. Smith would send me letters addressed to “Elder Baby Cakes.” I never could explain that properly to my mission president.


I could go on. But why bother.  To know Steve Smith is to know a master craftsman of comedy. And an Ohio gentleman, along the lines of Booth Tarkington’s ‘Gentleman from Indiana.


So wherever you are, Mrs. Calabash and Steve Smith, godspeed and may you get to heaven ten minutes before the devil knows you’re dead.

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