In the early 1950s, I had a children’s picture book about eight by ten inches concerning a clown who was forced to leave the circus. I can’t recall why he had to leave, but he had done something wrong. What lingers in my memory is a closing illustration of the clown, dressed in a blue clown suit, oversized shoes, red wig and nose, walking down a road with a pick and shovel over his right shoulder, perhaps into the setting sun, though I’m not sure of that detail. He had to leave the circus and become a ditch-digger. I thought it was the saddest image I had ever seen and the saddest fate I could imagine. I still think so.
297Z: The clown who had to become a ditch-digger
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