Botts remembers circus in Sharpsburg

Nick (the Dalmatian) joined the army with Nelson during WWII. Sadly he succumbed to the war. The army was needing dogs when Nelson enlisted.

Nelson Fant Botts was born Sept. 28, 1919 to Mason Harper Botts and Nancy Judy Saunders Botts.

His grandparents were Seth and Katherine Ratliff Botts.

Along with his sisters, May Elizabeth Botts Janes, Nancy Botts Hart and his brother Seth, Nelson grew up in Sharpsburg. He served as an officer in the Signal Corps during WWII. His brother Seth was killed in action during WWII.

He graduated from Sharpsburg High School in 1939 and

attended college at the University of Kentucky.

Nelson settled in Lexington after the war and married Madeline Miller of Clark County. Madeline also served as an army nurse during the war. He had a long career with Texas Instruments.

Nelson Fant Botts passed away Aug. 1, 2009.

Although he spent his adult years in Lexington and Versailles, he had Bath County in his blood and his offspring are extremely proud to be of Sharpsburg stock.

Nelson’s short stories were written to share his memories of growing up in Sharpsburg with his children and grandchildren.

We are extremely grateful that his daughter Jane has chosen to share those slices of small town life with our readers.

The Circus

continued

By Nelson Fant Botts

The circus people were not at all like the Browney show people. They were all business and hardworking and on schedule people who didn’t talk to kids or answer questions.

I have tried to remember their name and Clyde Brothers comes to mind but I don’t know if that is the correct name.

The elephants put up the tent and the camels watched. The ponies and horses ran all over the place and the girl trainers practiced their acts while all the work was going on.

I didn’t bother with breakfast but went right over to see if I could help. That was when I discovered how big an elephant is and how far above my head a camel’s head soars.

I also found out that I wasn’t welcome and they would run me off everywhere I went.

Soon the tent was up and tightened. They didn’t use chairs like the Browney’s but installed bleachers.

They built two rings right down front and everybody could see everything going on. I walked through all the stuff and was run off often.

This circus wasn’t anything like the Browney’s show. The people were unfriendly and were rude to us kids.

They threatened to put us in the lion’s cage BUT we persevered and got to see lots of things.

They set two wooden boxes close to our front gate where we went in an out a lot.

I, of course, went over to them and kicked them and was rewarded with a big rattling and hissing sound. The man came over and said STOP that. That box is full of rattlers and the other box has cobras and such in it, so my dad said MOVE them some other place. They were part of the sideshow for reptiles.

This circus had about 4 or 5 sideshows in little tents in a circle near the entrance.

One was food and candy and the others featured dancing girls. I guess I didn’t get to go see the dancing girls show.

One sideshow however cost a dime to get in and featured a weird whiskered man and half ape. His forté was to bite the head off live chickens as well as frogs and such. He was good at his work.

The circus itself was really good with two show rings and lots of activity, a man on the trapeze and a woman flying through the air.

There was an elephant and camel parade with the elephant sitting on a big wooden tub. I really loved it all.

These people moved everything on trailers and how they did it all I’ll never know.

The lion and its cage fit on a big truck as well as everything else.

They struck their tents and stole away into the night.

The elephant pulled up all the stakes and people everywhere folded everything and loaded it all, and made me respect their organization.

There was no train available to carry their loads as there are now. We were 12 miles from the train station.

I am pretty sure there was only one elephant and it was the star of the show and the work-horse (elephant).

I wish I could remember more.

I was asked to do a little bitty fishing story, which I will do for the education of the individual who requested I do a little bitty fishing story. And this of course goes back to years ago when I was a little boy but I was permitted to run around the farm.

And on this farm, they had a pool that the cattle and horses drank from called an animal drink pond which sloped slowly from the front down to the back which was deeper.

I loved to go down to the watering pond and look for snakes and other things that were in the rocks.

So, one day I decided I wanted to go fishing cause I had heard something about fishing. I think Seth went fishing and came back with some fish. I wanted to go fishing too.

I got myself some thread from my mother’s sewing machine and I got a safety pin, and a pair of pliers out of the meat house.

I bent the safety pin to where it was in a hook shape and I tied it onto the string and I got a little piece of bolt and fastened it after I found it wouldn’t sink.

I stood there and waited and waited and waited and then something hit the string, a little bitty fish.

I pulled the string up and there was a little fish just flying and flying, flopping and flopping.

I felt sorry for it, but I didn’t put it back.

I carried the string and the fish all the way back to the house, running as hard as I could go. I hollered at my mother and she came running. I said, “Look what I got, look what I got, I caught a fish, will you cook it?”

So, she took that fish and laid it on her kitchen table, scaled it and cut it open the head off, heated up the kerosene cooker that we used for cooking in the summertime, and she cooked that fish for me. I sat down and ate it and she sat there and told me exactly how to eat the little fish so I wouldn’t get any bones in my throat.

Nelson Botts, top left, and his classmates, Alice Cunningham, Nancy Fisher, Stanley Lane, William Lane, and Adrian Razor, graduated from Sharpsburg High School in 1939.