Another goofy Miami News assignment — an audition to become a Ringling Brothers Circus clown. However, little did my editors know that I had my own circus story — a University of Maryland era girlfriend who left me to go to Ringling’s clown college in Venice, Florida. I contrasted my pseudo “try-out” with my memories of, and reunion with my ex-squeeze, and produced a tear-jerker that was picked up by the wire services and ran in newspapers around the country. (She told me that I was part of the “outside world.” I took one look around that cramped circus train — overflowing with dwarfs, midgets, clowns, surly animal keepers, Russian Cossack riders, etc. — and was darn happy for it!)