Greetings friends. Glad to be back with you again.

Recently I was surprised to hear that a circus was coming to town. By the time this column is published, it will already have played at Emerson Park.

I didn't realize that there were still any traveling tent circuses left. Years ago, there were dozens traveling the country, and several would come to Auburn every summer. I can recall a few that came here over the years: Downey Brothers, Sells-Floto, Cole Brothers-Clyde Beatty, Hagenbeck-Wallace, Tom Mix and others. Do you recall seeing any of these great shows?

Circus advance men came to town several weeks before the circus was due and put large colorful circus posters, with the arrival date, in store windows and on billboards throughout the city. As a child, I was practically hypnotized by these posters.

Circuses were a very popular form of entertainment in those days, but eventually other activities and the modern lifestyle caused a loss of interest in them. I loved circuses when I was a young lad and am thankful that my father took to me to see some of them.

Years ago, circuses traveled by rail but when motorized vehicles became a travel mode, some switched to trucks and trailers.

Circuses set up their tents at the Wait lot on Grant Avenue. This was before Grant Avenue became a major shopping area. Those that came by rail had to unload the rail cars and then transport their equipment to the lot. Large animals, such as horses and elephants, walked to the lot.

When a circus came to town, quite a few of us teenage boys would go to the circus lot early in the morning to earn an admission ticket by working. We unloaded trucks, carried chairs, helped with the tents and did other tasks.

A circus usually came for a one-day stand with two performances, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Some also had a parade in the downtown area before the afternoon performance. A circus parade included a circus band, circus wagons, performers in open vehicles and on horseback, caged animals and elephants.

In those days, most circuses had three tents. The largest was the performance tent and was called the big top. The other two were the menagerie tent and the sideshow tent.

The animals were in the menagerie tent, as the name implies. And it usually adjoined the big top. When going to the circus you went through the menagerie tent first, to view the animals and then into the big top.

The big top was a very large tent that was longer than it was wide. This was because there were three rings in a row in the center of the tent. There were bleacher seats in each end of the tent and these were the less expensive seats. In the side areas there were usually folding chairs.

Circus performances usually started with a parade around the interior of the tent. After the parade there were circus acts in each of the three rings. If there was an exceptional act, it would be in the center ring and the other two rings would be temporarily idle. This would focus total audience attention on the performance. Normally, though, there would be acts in all three rings at the same time.

Performers included acrobats, aerialists, tightrope walkers, animal trainers, horseback stunt riders, clowns and others.

The sideshow tent was for attractions that were auxiliary to the main show in the big top. There was no seating in the tent. There were platforms that ringed the interior of the tent that could be considered small stages, with a different attraction on each. Each performer did his or her thing in order with the spectators standing in front and moving from stage to stage as the show moved.

Some of the attractions in the sideshow were on the odd side. There were fire eaters, sword swallowers and freaks, a term that circuses loved to use.

If a person had a deformity of some kind, he was put on display and called a freak. One freak that you saw frequently in circus sideshows was a person who was half man and half woman, supposedly. There were also entertaining acts, such as jugglers.

In order to draw people to the sideshow, the circus put up a long row of large, colorful and illustrated banners in front of the sideshow tent, one for each of the sideshow attractions. There was also a platform for the sideshow barker and for sample demonstrations by sideshow performers.

As I bring this column to a close, I would like to state that it certainly was amazing how a circus would come to town in the morning; set up its tents and equipment; put on a parade and two performances; feed and take care of its performers, workers and animals; take down and pick up everything after the evening show; move on to the next town, and do everything all over again the next day. Yes it was amazing indeed.

There is something else I would like to say as I close out this column. I have so many things to do and so little energy that I am going to have to take a break from writing my column.

Hopefully it won't be for too long, but I'm afraid it might be for the entire summer.

Carmelo Signorelli is an Auburn resident who enjoys reminiscing about the good ol' days