As Prince said, Dig if you will a picture:
You don't see this at the Fair anymore, and on behalf of everyone who has confessed to a deep uneasiness with the whole clown genre, this is progress. Kids know there's a reason they're in makeup, and they all look alike even when the makeup is off. They are part of a shadowy gang that moves from town to town, stealing kids and making them work in the circus under the lash of a cruel ringmaster.
Don't ask for help from the Fat Lady; her jolly demeanor switches to mocking laughter and shrieked commands when the crowds are gone. No one messes with the Fat Lady. In the pecking order of the Midway, she's over the clowns; the only one she really fears is the lion tamer, whose rude, brutish magnetism unnerves her.
Or not. Or, it's a picture of some happy circus folk entertaining kids from the Shriner Hospital, as the cutline says. It's 1958 in this picture, and you wish you'd see Fat Ladies strolling the Midway again, preening under a tiny umbrella, inviting all to the next show. Another thing you don't see:
Men in fezzes.
Back in a bit with Mr. Info, the Star-Tribune's human search engine.
