Carl spent his mornings
at the Community College
studying to be an accountant.
His Aunt Maude, with whom he lived,
had recommended accounting.
"You can always get a job as an accountant,"
she said every morning
before heading out to Arlene's Beauty World,
where she spent most of her day
putting perms in old ladies' hair.

In the evenings Carl worked
as a cashier at Lou's Discount City.
Lou had hinted more than once
that a man with a degree in accounting
could have a future at Lou's.

But in the afternoons,
between the Community College and Lou's,
Carl would put on his baggy pants
and his Hawaiian print shirt
and a pair of really good Groucho glasses
that he'd bought at an acting supply store,
and he'd stand on the corner
of 15 th and Belview - downtown by the deli -
and he'd juggle for the lunchtime crowd.
Behind his back, under the leg,
cascade and shower and columns.
Two balls, three balls, even four.
Clubs, knives, hammers, fruit, and eggs.
He was even saving money for torches,
at the same acting supply store
where he'd gotten his glasses.
The more dangerous it was,
the more people would stop and watch,
and sometimes they'd even applaud,
and every once in a very great while
they'g d throw money into the hat
that he always set on the ground
before he'd begin his routine.

Now all good stories
have to have something happen,
and this is it:
Carl's Aunt Maude ran off with Eugene,
the maintenance man in their building.

The note was rather hard to read.
It said something about Keno in Reno;
the bills are paid to the end of the month;
there's leftovers in the 'fridge,
and don't forget to feed Lester.
Lester was the dog.

Actually, Carl wasn't very upset at all,
since he paid most of the bills anyway,
the maintenance man was never around when you needed him,
and the leftovers weren't really that good to begin with.
It'a s just that he didn't particularly care for the dog.

Lester came from a long line of dogs,
none of which was over two feet tall,
but he mostly looked like a very rough cross between a poodle and a terrier,
with a face that looked kinda like
a collie with an upper bite.
But Carl had nothing against ugly little dogs,
even ugly little dogs with loud little yaps
so shrill they made your teeth hurt.
What Carl hated
was ugly little dogs with shrill little yaps
that needed to be walked,
because there was no good time
to walk the shrill, ugly little dog,
except in the afternoon.
So Carl took Lester with him
when he juggled downtown.

Lester mostly sat there,
not being shrill or loud
and not really being very ugly.
A few people even said,
"Oh, look at the cute little dog."
These were usually the people
that never left any money.

Then one day Cal dropped the rubber fish
that he was trying to juggle
with the rubber chicken and the rubber banana
and the real stalk of celery,
and Lester got up and got it,
and be brought it back.
And he jumped up and gave it to Carl
so that Carl didn't even have to break stride.
The crowd was really impressed.
A lot of them actually applauded with enthusiasm,
and more people than ever before
left money in the hat Carl had left on the street.

As the days went by,
Carl found out that whatever he dropped
Lester would get,
even the knives and hammers and the torches
that Carl was finally able to buy.
In fact, Lester got so good
that he'd usually get whatever Carl dropped
before it ever hit the ground.
The crowds got bigger and bigger,
and Carl started dropping things on purpose.
And when he didn't,
when he was doing something really tough,
like juggling five avocados or six pieces of really fine china,
the people in the crowd would always yell,
"Hey! Go ahead and drop something, already!"
So he would.

Then one day a man came up after the show
and offered Carl an incredible amount of money for Lester,
so Carl sold him.
The man took Lester to Hollywood,
changed his name to Flash,
and even got him on the Arsenio Hall show.
The crowd loved him.

Carl still went downtown in the afternoons,
but fewer and fewer people bothered to stop,
and hardly anybody even politely clapped,
and nobody at all left any money in Carl's hat.
And then one day Carl stopped going downtown altogether.

Pretty soon after that
Carl graduated from the Community College
with an Associates Degree in Accounting,
and Lou kept his promise,
promoting him to Assistant Manager in Charge of Accounts,
which was a day job,
so Carl would've had to have stopped juggling anyway.

 "I don't know...  I mean, after the first few seasons... well... not hooking up...  I don't know.  It wasn't for not trying.  You know how it goes.  But, you know... maybe mating's not for everyone.  I mean, I don't have to mate... do I?  Like anybody's going to care if I don't.  I mean...  It's OK if I don't.  Isn't it?" 

Let's face it. Nobody would give a rip about the ides of anything, much less the Ides of March, if it hadn't been for William Shakespeare. In his play Julius Caesar, he has the Soothsayer warn the doomed ruler, "Beware the ides of March." (I.ii.66)

Though Shakespeare isn't known for his historic accuracy, he pretty much got this one spot on. There really was a Julius Caesar, he really had made himself dictator, he really wanted that position to be permanent, and there really were a bunch of people willing to kill him in order to stop that from happening. And they did... well, at least they killed him. (Handwerk) Ironically, in trying to stop a dictatorship, Brutus and his cohorts actually started a civil war that led to the even worse dictatorship of Augustus. (Ides of March)

From earliest time, before Shakespeare and Caesar, the ides of every month were sacred to Jupiter, the chief Roman god. There were sacrifices and feasts and a good time was had by all, except maybe the sheep. As well, in the old Roman calendar, before King Gregory mucked everything up, March was the first month of the year, with ceremonies lasting through the ides. (Ides of March) There was even a special goddess just for that day, Anna Perenna, the goddess of the New Year. (Gill) Tied into all of that, the Ides of March pretty became the equivalent of tax day, that day of the year when you paid your debts.

"Ides," which means "to split," marked the middle of every month in the Roman calendar. However, to put it always on the same day would make sense. So in March, May, July, and October the ides fall on the 15th, and in every other month on the 13th. (Handwerk) It apparently took the Romans awhile to figure out that dates work better if you don't base them on the moon.

In general, the phrase "Beware the Ides of March" has come to mean "Beware any Fateful Day," which seems a bit redundant. (Gill) But should we really fear the 15th of March? Aside from Caesar's death in 44 BCE, the French began a brutal raid of Southern England on that day in 1360. A cyclone in Samoa destroyed six warships and killed over 200 sailors in 1889 (although it may have prevented a war). In 1917, on the 15th, Czar Nicholas II gave up his throne, which brought in the Bolsheviks and led to execution of the Czar and his family (including Anastasia). In 1939 on the Ides of March, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. In 1941 at least 60 people died from a blizzard on the Great Plains. In 1952, setting a new record for a single day, it rained 73.62 inches on the island of La Réunion, out in the Indian Ocean. If that weren't enough, in 1971, on the Ides of March, CBS cancelled "The Ed Sullivan Show," which marked the beginning of the end for all variety shows. Then in 1988 NASA first scared the bejeezus out of everybody by telling us the ozone layer was disappearing. And in 2003 the World Health Organization issued a warning for SARS, a particularly nasty malady. (Frail) And let's not forget the band "The Ides of March," which had the hit song "Vehicle," but nothing else. Nor can we forget the 2011 film by that same name which starred George Clooney. (Gibson) So maybe we should truly beware the Ides of March.

Work Cited

Frail, T.A. "Top Ten Reasons to Beware the Ides of March." 4 Mar. 2010. Smithsonian.com. 3 Mar. 2014. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/top-ten-reasons-to-beware-the-ides-of-march-8664107/?no-ist

Gibson, Megan. "Not Just Julius: The Many Meanings of The Ides of March." 15 Mar. 2011. Time NewsFeed. 3 Mar. 2014. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/15/not-just-julius-the-many-meanings-of-the-ides-of-march/

Gill, N. S. "Beware the Ides of March! Julius Caesar and a Look at the Romans' Ides of March." 2014. About.com. 03 Mar. 2014. http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/caesar1/g/idesofmarch.htm

Handwerk, Brian. "Ides of March: What Is It? Why Do We Still Observe It?" 15 Mar. 2012. National Geographic Daily News. 3 Mar. 2014. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120315-ides-of-march-beware-caesar-what-when-shakespeare-quote/

"Ides of March." 27 Feb. 2014. Wikipedia. 3 Mar. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March

Unicycle Bob was the most amazing circus act
that I have ever seen.
Unicycle Bob couldn't ride the unicycle for squat.
I mean, he could hold his balance most of the time,
but he was always running into things.

Come to find out,
Unicycle Bob was just this guy from my home town
who didn't even travel with the circus.
I think he was an investment banker or something as equally exciting.
He just wanted to be in the circus,
if only once.
So he talked the circus owner into letting him ride his unicycle
on a tight rope
over the lion cages
with no net.
What did the owner have to lose?

I must've been all of eleven,
sitting there in the stands.
And here comes Unicycle Bob,
wearing a bright yellow shirt
and a yellow derby hat.
Where do you get yellow derby hats?
So Bob climbs up on the pole with his red unicycle.
He must've been fifty feet off the ground,
and below him all these lions are starting to take notice.

Well, Bob bows to the crowd after the big introduction,
and everyone goes quiet,
except for the lions;
they were really getting into the show.
And then the drum roll starts
and right on cue Bob takes off.

He actually made it about two feet
before he fell head first into the lion cage.
It really didn't matter if the fall would've done Bob in.

That was pretty much the circus for that Saturday afternoon.

I can't help but think Bob would've been better off
if he'd learned to juggle torches,
or maybe if he'd learned to ride the unicycle better,
but I guess we'll never know.