Partnership Educators,
There was once a stretch of Coney Island Boardwalk that ran all the way from Feltman's Astroland to Steeplechase Park. It was a wooden planked pathway prowled by a stiltwalker named Archie. He was an absurd appearing creature in his pink and white costume with a striped top hat, cutaway jacket, and enormous bell bottom trousers concealing his stilts. This absurdity was exaggerated by his height of some sixteen feet from his head to the ground. Archie had been a stilt walker for as long as anybody could remember. At six and a half, he had joined a famous troupe of acrobats called the Penders. They were more than acrobats really they tumbled and danced like Russian Cossacks. When the Penders traveled abroad young Archie went with them. In no time the boy became professionally proficient in every aspect of the trade and especially as a stilt walker. In those days many theatrical stages sloped towards the audience which made stilt walking all the more arduous. Archie’s stilts were so tall that a ladder was needed to place him on top of them. His skill and his inclination were so good that after a few years of flirting with formal education, he returned to the Penders at age fifteen and accompanied them to New York. One of his happiest experiences was the tour of the eastern states with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He was seventeen by then and a seasoned performer and would never outgrow the intoxication of the bright colors and brass bands and the sawdust and the grease paint of this time in his life.
It was hard to tell when things started going downhill. Maybe it was after he took that solo job just walking through New York’s Time Square. No longer embraced by the circus atmosphere, he found himself on top of pegs with a silly getup and draped with an advertising sandwich board barking out promotions with a megaphone with belligerent bands of young hoodlums who mocked him and sought to interfere. From here he went to Coney Island, which he liked even less. For the sake of feeding himself, he endured. You could have seen him, most every day smiling through the frustration and self-loathing all while putting on the happy face that he had practiced almost all of his life. Then the time came when enough was enough. This is the moment when show business history is usually made. Some say it was a carnival clown named Don Barclay who told Archie that it was time to move on.
It is important for us to not forget a young stilt walker named Archie Leach. Who could have stayed a performer at Barnum and Bailey or a stilt walker at Coney Island but instead came down off those stilts and ascended to the pinnacle of another profession. He became a dashing and dapper Cary Grant.
Our students live the stories that their lives have brought them to today. Every story has a new chapter that is being written that leads to the climax and end. I appreciate the Don Barclay's among us who help our young folks to find new and changing passions to pursue. Like Cary Grant, our young wards will not forget their past experiences or passions but build upon those life experiences to enhance the new pathways. We can't know something until we experience it and start to learn the nuances of that thing. Many of our students will tell us that they don't like something. Sometimes that means that they are afraid and just haven't had success enough to know if they like it. Thanks to what you all do with our students every day, they may be experiencing the future passions that sling-shot them to unknown heights in their lives. You are making a difference for students every day. It might seem small to you but for them, it's huge.
Thank you for what you do and have a great weekend.
https://youtu.be/FpZReQpviVA
Rob