Circus to Remember


On June 17,1998 a circus came to close to where I live. It was windy and rainy that day. My dad, Leah, Lexi, Barbie and I all went to see it. It was my first circus and I was so excited. When we arrived in the parking lot, it was down pouring. We raced inside the tent. The air was stuffy with the scent of cotton candy and popcorn. We sat in the middle of the steel bleachers.

Halfway through the show the flap on the tent was blowing everywhere making a misty rain hit our back. I looked up and saw the shyscrapper tent poles rock back and forth. Through the tiny holes in the roof of the tent I saw the sky was an eerie gray color. The rapping of rain was over taking the circus music. It sounded like a never-ending pound on a bass drum. CRACK. A sound of lightning with a roar of thunder was piercing my ears. I was getting scared. I looked at the tent poles, were swaying like a plum tree in a hurricane. I took a simple blink and when I opened my eyes there were loud screams. I looked around, and the giant tent poles that was holding this place up, was slowly falling. One pole hit the top of our bleachers making it rollover. Everyone was hurrying out of the tent. My dad grabbed Leah and me in both arms and ran for and exits, while Barbie was getting Lexi.
When dad was running with us in his arms I could see people sprinting and animals running. The tent came down before we made it outside. The weight of the tent knocked, us over forcing us to lie on our stomachs. We crawled up until we could stick our heads out. We looked up and a zebra ran past our heads. We crawled out and ran for somewhere to shelter under. Up ahead we saw a trailer van with a light on. Each step we too we heard barks growing louder and louder. Dad pounded on the door and a skinny lady with glittery bright make-up opened the dour. She was wearing a tutu. All around her there were poodles and other small dogs all wearing dresses with puffy clothes. She let us in. she had the weather cannel on so we all waited for the storm to be gone.


Barbie was just in the middle of the tent when it came down. She was only fifteen and this was her first circus. She army crawled with Lexi until she found a way out. Barbie ran and crawled with Lexi underneath a Semi truck. She and Lexi waited there for a while until the wind started to pick up. The semi started to rock back and forth. She didn’t know where else to go. She ran and found the van and squeezed under there with Lexi.


The storm was finally letting up. We thanked the dog lady and we went outside. We walked toward the van and found Barbie and Lexi underneath it. We got in and drove home. That is a circus to remember.



**On June 17, 1998 in West Salem, Wisconsin a storm toppled the Sterling and Reid Bros. circus tent over. 300 people attend and were sitting on bleachers. 20 to 25 people were injured. 13 were taken’ to a local hospital.