Juggling Jacksons

A Brief History of The Juggling Jacksons

1950s


                 When my dad, Bob Jackson, met my mother, Lois Kay Trevillian, he was a juggler and she was a dancer.  They got married and while my mother was pregnant with me she learned to juggle.

          They worked long hours in rehearsing a juggling act until they finally put together a fast-paced act they called The Juggling Jacksons.  The act became a popular fixture in nightclubs, at conventions, and in other show venues in the early to latter 1950s around the Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania areas.


1960s

         After four more children and moves to San Diego, California and the Chicagoland area of Northern Indiana, the kids were added to The Juggling Jacksons in what my father used to call "The Big Act".  It was a fast paced act that incorporated intricate juggling patterns.

         This new larger Juggling Jacksons act began playing numerous fairs, circuses, corporate parties, and other shows throughout the Midwestern United States.   Then Bob's day job transferred him and his family to the quaint town of Maryville in East Tennessee.

              The "Big Act" was sharpened up and often performed as a self-contained show throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, and other Southern states.   The Juggling Jacksons continued to perform for several years until the kids started moving on into adulthood.  Bob and Lois continued to perform--again as a two person act--into the 1980s.

Mid 1970s til Now

           And me?  After a few years at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, I went on as a solo act in the Ken Griffin Magic Show in 1975.   For the next sixteen years, I toured the country with various shows often as a juggler, but mostly as a show manager.  In my juggling act I was billed as "The Juggling Jackson".

            So if you were wondering about the picture in the header of the blog, this is a brief account of how it came about.  And my blog title Tossing It Out?    It was my juggling metaphor for tossing out ideas to readers and juggling words and phrases.  Do I still juggle?  Not often, but I still can--it's just like riding a bicycle.




*******