The daily democrat. [volume] (Anadarko, Oklahoma) 190?-1908, 1907-03-01
pCLENZ0, the
G0AT0RTI0NlST


down was that you had mp at Troy?
read of It in the papers. Did it
tear you mp muoh2'
II was Harry Gray. a veteran circus
man, who asked the question.
Boston" was another circus man
who had just got in "od the road
Well answered Boston 1t
wasn't much of a hlowdowu. II was
more OF a blossin than not, because
/ it rid us Of pest that had been both
| erin us nightly for a spell.
when our show started out on the |
| road last spring we We're SO short of |
/ performers that we couldn't give q |
/ whole show. and the old man was
/ lookin' mighty hard for anyone that
could do any kind of an old stunt In
the actin line one day he got a
letter from a guy what said he was
| the star contoruonist of the west,
said ho could just lay il all over any
other coutoriOuist that ever lived,
and could make the best of 'cm look
like thirty cents worth of dog meat
called himself polcnzo, or something
] IINt llINN. ~ ' ANIA'h llAlAA '' A''''''a
names after he came on that | forget
his real name.
"Wcu. the old man liked his letter
and wired him TO come on, and he
|, Joined the show the next week. He
hadn't no more apparatus than a rab-
bit All he had was a green box
about % inches square, painted green
. I l, Iilu't
, have a trunk or anything else Talk
about rubcs; why, he had all the
rubos that ever breathod skinned a
mile. He carried all of his wardrobe
. i'm that box. and when he came to do
his act he dumped his duds out on
the ground.
His sole act was to double up In
J that box, shut down the lid and be
l carried into the ring by two property
men Then he would get out, make
J his little bow, and scrape around a
! little while get back and then get out
! several times to show how easy he
could do t. and finally he'd get in his
7 little box and be carried out again.
> Honest, Harry, it was the rottenest
) act / ever saw in ali my life, and I've
been around some you know.
D But Polenzo, or Pocahontas. or
4 whatever his name was, would bow
a and smirk and smile 10 the audience
u Ike he was the whole show all by his
Z ownself. The sassige sEn'
i "And he got ten week and grul
4 for it, and the old man just had tC
81 ! f.,,..,.., I .af
Il we was short handed. All of the per
u formers was sore on him though, an,
y we used to sit up at night thinking
, how to get rid of him. At last on,
of the property men said he'd do thu
trick SO the next afternoon whei
- Polenzo, or Pollywog, or whatever Inf
name was, climbed into his littl
green box, we all mobbed up insid
the dressingroOm entrance to see how
y the prop would pull It off.
" "Just as the props entered the RIM
one of them pretended to stumble an,
NJ dropped his side of the box. O
course when the box was droppe
l. Joan of Arc tried to get out and tn
No props acted as if they were tryin
10 ktl lllt UbA ENl dlEllltlltl hI bAl
every time Pocahontas stuck his hea
D. up they banged him on the head wit
- the lid. Well, we thought that was
40 hint sufficient, but the rube didn
mind 1t at all Said he was used I
y such things We was good and ma
So about the way he was staying on tn
show and we was talking it over on
afternoon while his nibs was in tn
oe ring. Nobody had a good schem
y, and we were about to give up whe
X we heard Big Bill, the boss canva
-, man, yelling:
w. Everybody to a guy rope. Won
n en- take care o. themselves
On Say, there was the worst stori
-o comm | ever saw. You could see Il
~ wind just a-tearin' up everything
sight, reglar cyclone. Just before
VI struck us, though, the twister wei
TO one side and we got just a pa
of the wind But that was enough.
49, "The wind hit the big top an
80 ripped it straight across. The thir
vas full of people, but Big Bill
voice could be heard above ever
thing else telling tde people TO
MET And they just sat there,
When | saw that storm a conf
e was me for a guy rope and eve
other man jack of us done the sam
I had just put on a brand new GLOW
suit, but II looked like a dish n
when the storm had passed Eve
time a fresh gust of wind vou
come the old top would heave a
slosh me down in a puddle of wat
When that storm was over / look
like / had been pulled through
sponge.
"Wen, after the storm we all {
under the dressin' top and count
heads. Polenzo was missin'. We
started hunt for him and found h
about a mile from town, still in
tights and covered with mud.
said he didn't care abou, circus