Bobby Hakes, the man who supplied clownalley.net with a steady stream of classic circus videos, passed away peacefully last Saturday night.
From Bill Strong's YESTERDAY'S TOWNS
Bobby was a retired concession manager, who worked his way up from "candy butcher" to owning his own business.
A little known fact is that he was also a member of Bill Atterbury's "Sky Kings", Sway Pole Act.
Bobby was another of those unique personalities who made our life a "Circus", he will be missed.
He most certainly will.
I was surprised yesterday morning to receive a phone call from Bobby's loving wife of 40 years, Phips (of the Sloan/Yelding family) who thanked me for being a loyal customer over the years and assured me that my most recent order would be on it's way shortly.
I was flabbergasted.
I will never cease to be awed and impressed with the work ethic of real "old circus" type people.
"Old Circus"--the term I always heard, courtesy Jack Ryan, was "real circus"--couldn't be more descriptive of Bobby, as well as Phipps and his inlaws, Barrie and Sheilah (Yelding) Sloan.
ReplyDeleteBobby, as concessionaire, was a terrific example of the litterally hundreds of people whose hard work and dedication fueled "The Greatest Show on Earth" and kept it going...
(Not to mention the incredible service he did for the millions of circus buffs and performers who turned to him for videos and memorabelia of everything circus, from today's shows to the remnents of an all-but-fogotten age!)...
I'm sorry to read the sad, sad news...
--Michael Karp