---

By Larry Johnson, the band’s last director, October 6, 2018

Larry Joins the Circus

Time was when every young boy dreamed of running away and joining the circus. I actually did it.  Sort of. Only I didn’t run away. There was a circus right there in my home town so I simply joined it. That’s still not quite right, so I’ll start at the beginning.

It was the year 1949.  My family was then living in Ardmore, Oklahoma. That spring the Gainesville Community Circus performed in Ardmore. Later in the year, Ringling Bros. came to town.  Thus it happened that I saw both of these shows only a few months apart.  They were both quite good, and I remember only two differences between them.  The Gainesville Circus had only one elephant while Ringling Bros.had a whole herd of them. The other difference was that the Ringling Bros. band was a whole lot better. Well, duh! I had just heard Merle Evans and his legendary band of windjammers.  And I was captivated by the sound of it. Little did I know that ten years later I too would be leading a circus band.

About a year and a half, and three grade schools later, my family moved to Gainesville. To me Gainesville was a thriving metropolis.  It had city busses (two of them!), three movie theaters, red lights in many places instead of one or two along a highway, a minor league baseball team, and a recently-closed WW II Army base whose remnants were everywhere.

But Gainesville was famous for its circus. This was something other cities didn’t have.  I had already seen the circus and knew it was good, so it was only natural that I began to ask myself what I could do to be in it. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get the sound of that band out of my head.

Then I entered the fifth grade.  My chance to enroll in band quickly came and I decided to learn to play the trombone.  My instrument was a hand-me-down G.l. horn that an older cousin had used.  I tried, but just couldn’t get the thing to make an acceptable sound.  Finally, at the beginning of my 7th grade year, the band director told me, “I don’t see how you play that clunker as well as you do, but you’re never going to get anywhere with it.  I want you to try this.”  Then he handed me a Sousaphone.

It was a perfect match. Befuddled at first by the switch from slide to valves, I soon sorted it out and began to make rapid progress in learning a new instrument. By the spring of my 8th grade year, the director invited me to sit in with the Circus Band, which he also led, for the upcoming season.  The circus band! Wow! That was the ultimate musical achievement in Gainesville!  But was I ready for it?  No.

The Circus Band’s tuba player was a graduating senior who would be gone at the end of the season.  A replacement had to be developed.  By having me sit beside him, listen to him play, and attempt to play along, the director hoped I would absorb enough familiarity with the music to carry the part for the next four years.  I did.

And that’s how I joined the circus.

Next Installment, “Gainesville, Texas and the Circus”