JT, Call Home!

It was months before I finally got the phone call. He was somewhere in the deep South. Georgia, I think, but I won't swear to it. He sounded happy and excited. But his news of a job shook me up. JT had joined the circus. Driving trucks, set up, running rides, a bobo clown in the dunk tank. Where ever they needed him. He was having a grand old time touring the south and up the east coast.

That's all I know about that job. When he was ok, he'd call me. When I didn't hear from him, I always feared the worst. Sometimes it would be weeks or months at a time.

Eventually I got a phone call from Maryland. He'd left the circus when he found a job in construction there. Before I could get excited about the "real job", he clarified it by saying "high rise construction." The idea of JT and his bad luck working up there somewhere in the air didn't make me feel better.

Again, he's never given me any details, but I was right to worry. There was an accident. More horseplay. No one was badly hurt, but they weren't wearing the mandatory safety harness and were fired because of it.

He wanted to come home for a visit, then go back. After his visit, I took him to the bus depot in Columbus OH. (about 55-60 miles from home) I don't remember why I couldn't stay till the bus got there. Probably my job. I thought he was on the bus back to some friends in Maryland.

A few days later I got a phone call from Columbus. He'd never gotten on the bus. Somehow, he'd hooked up with some girl he'd met sometime, somewhere earlier while with the circus and he was living with her in Columbus. He phoned to tell me I was a GrandMother and his son was about 8 months old. (JT should write a book.)