Cell Phones and Circuses

Last week the circus came to town!

That's right, the Greatest Show on Earth, right here in Malad, Idaho!

OK, perhaps not the "Greatest Show." But it was, in fact, a circus. The Culpepper and Merriweather Circus 2008. www.CMCircus.com if you are curious.

You know how you do certain things more for your children than for yourself? Yep, this was one of those. Understand, this is Malad, Idaho. Big shows don't stop here. I knew this would be a small, low-budget show. I was right on that count. Two tigers, a lion, two elephants, a clown, and two talented families performing in one ring, all within a brightly colored, well worn tent. That was it. Nothing more.

Yet, for all of that, it was charming. What's more, it really got me thinking about entertainment as opposed to amusement.

We live in the world of iPods, cell phones, and Nintendo. (or whatever game is popular this week!) Now, I am not suggesting that these gadgets were contrived by Darth Vader as part of his plan to take over the universe.

But have you noticed how they divide people from everything around them, including other people?

Case in point: I chaperoned a church dance where I saw a boy and a girl dancing... while the boy talked with someone else on his cell phone. If the girl was not offended, I was for her.

On another occasion I was visiting with a friend who kept looking at her phone. That's right... texting. She was carrying on a second conversation at the same time. A conversation that excluded everyone present. (We call this "multitasking.")

Still not convinced? OK, consider this: How often do you see a kid in a crowd, listening to music that only he can here? How much meaningful interaction were they having with those around them? Yup, alone in the crowd, and not even conscious of it! (In their own private Idaho, as the B-52s would have it.)

Yes, these toys are cool and I love them. But sometimes they do isolate us from the world around us.

Back to the circus!

For me this little circus was a throwback to another time; a time when things were simpler, and people were more... together.

Back in the old days, these "mud shows" would travel from town to town. The circus coming to town was the entertainment zenith of the year! These were small shows, run by a 1 or 2 talented families, always on the move, working their tails off, and barely keeping things afloat during hard times, but "the show must go on" and so they did.

For me, this little traveling circus brought it all to the present. It was like jumping back several decades to a simpler time. Imagine coming across a old section of Route 66, still in tact, much as it was before the superhighways took over the country. A piece of Americana worth preserving. It was like that.

Is this coming across as overly dramatic? Hmm, I am sure it is, and I apologize. Perhaps I have just seen Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken too many times.

So there I was, back in a simpler time, enjoying watching my kids as they watched "Miss Simone" flying across the tent while hanging on to the trapeze by one leg.

(I got some digital pictures of them on my cell phone...)