A Mudshow Season

For those who were wondering. For 2008 I invited everybody to step into the mud with Trey Key’s Culpepper & Merriweather Great Combined Circus, of Hugo, Oklahoma. I hope to join the show for the season in it’s second week, around March 11th or 12th. While I may not have a regular internet connection, I do intend to post entries thereafter on every town and every jump.

A little history. Culpepper & Merriweather , celebrating its 23rd season (a pretty good run for a small mudshow) was started by Robert “Red” Johnson, formerly the canvas boss of the legendary Big John Strong Circus, and Wayne Franzen’s Franzen Bros Circus. Mr. Johnson’s early cohorts included Jim Hebert and Curtis Cainan. Legend has it in the early days the show didn’t sell tickets, but passed the hat. From humble beginnings long-lived circuses are born.

It’s no secret that the 2008 outdoor circus season is coming out of winterquarters with labor difficulties. The failure of Congress to address H-2B temporary worker visa caps means that every show is understaffed. Bear with us and we’ll get the tents up. Likewise the bubble in crude oil prices threatens four dollar diesel and gas before summer. With those costs, no show will be routing the long way around much of anything. In the meantime it’s Spring in the southland, even if it’s still very much winter in places like Wisconsin. In a few weeks the green lots of East Texas will be alive with bigtops, and if just a whisper now, listen closely – summer is coming, and the circus will be back in town.