The rule was you had to be five years old. Five years old and up, and you could go to the circus with my grandfather (Papa). My brother was the oldest, a full four years old than me, so he had the pleasure of going solo for several years there. But then once we came of age, me and my cousins weren’t far behind and we became quite the group.

One other rule: you could pick out one souvenir. But my cousin Dean found a loophole: Papa didn’t consider all of the food and drinks that the vendors walked around with souvenirs, so he would order one of everything. Cotton candy, popcorn, sno-cones, you name it. And then he’d puke. Every year.  My brother almost always got a big circus poster. My younger cousins got the light up “whirligigs” as we called them, and I always got a stuffed elephant, horse, zebra, big cat – some form of an animal. No surprise there.

This year my dad and I brought my boys to see the same circus. Lucky Nate – he’s only four! Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey always swings through Chicago in November. That part is the same. It brought back so many fond memories.

Some things have changed, it’s now in the United Center instead of the old Chicago Stadium where it was when I was small (the Chicago Stadium no longer exists). Papa used to take us to this totally tiny, seedy hot dog joint prior to the circus which even as a kid I thought “this really isn’t a place for kids it seems kinda sketchy” – it was such an adventure. Thinking about it now that I’m a parent, I can’t believe he took all of us. Quite the undertaking.

It was so fun to watch my boys watching the show – their eyes were huge and they were basically stunned silent for quite a while. Professional cameras weren’t allowed so I had to do what I could with my little Olympus point and shoot, and then sadly the batteries died about 15 minutes into the show! I was hoping to get lion tamer pictures but no such luck. Here are a few from our trip starting with the obligatory whirligig purchase: