Juggling Jackson ( #AtoZChallenge )

I'm not a Darwinist, but I do believe in evolution where it applies to society, politics, and juggling acts...

The Jugging Jacksons @ 1966
(photo taken by studio in Alcoa Tennessee)

         Up until I was about age 10 the act known as The Juggling Jacksons consisted of two people--my father and my mother.  They performed that way from about 1953. when my mother due to a couple of pregnancies temporarily stopped doing her dancing act and worked up a team juggling act with my father, up to around 1961 when my sister joined the act.  Not to be outdone by my younger sibling, I too learned to juggle and was soon incorporated into the family juggling act. 

         We practiced a lot and worked rather sporadically with gigs that fit my father's work schedule.  School schedule was never a consideration--my parents would just take us out when a job came up for us and settle with the principal later on.  After all we were good students and being out for a spell now and then didn't affect our grades to any great extent.

          The juggling jobs provided a nice little income for me over the years.  I'd get paid $25 per job, which was money that in the sixties I could stretch out as a kid and still put some away in savings.  There were also perks like the restaurant meals my father paid for, the interesting places we'd go, and the general fun of performing and being around show people.

          As is frequently said, show business gets in your blood.  My sister essentially departed from her interest in the show biz lifestyle after she moved away from home, but I was hooked.  I continued to work in the family act throughout college (with a pay hike to $50 per show).  Then, after I dropped out of college (I'd been going for five years already) I was offered a job to tour with a magic show.  It was an offer too good to refuse.

           The night before I was to leave on the new show I played my last date with The Juggling Jacksons performing in the Emmett Kelly Jr. circus which was playing a high school gym in Cleveland Tennessee.  The next day I was on a Trailways bus leaving the Knoxville station on my way to meet up with the magic show somewhere in North Carolina.  It was a bittersweet parting, but it was also a new chapter in my life and the history of The Juggling Jacksons.


            The family juggling act that had established a good reputation as being a top notch professional passing act had gone back to its beginnings--a husband and wife juggling team. The big act had permutated into two working entities--the Juggling Jacksons and one solitary juggler known as The Juggling Jackson (singular).

The Lone Juggling Jackson in 1976
(photo taken by a studio in Spencer, Indiana)

       

          This is me--The Juggling Jackson formerly of The Juggling Jacksons.  I'm not juggling much anymore.  Sometimes I'll toss up a few on a whim, but I doubt whether I'll ever again be performing in the sole capacity as a juggler.  Now it's mostly something to entertain the grandkids and that doesn't happen often.

             Nevertheless, I'll always think of myself as The Juggling Jackson even if it should legitimately be qualified as "former".   It's unlikely that you'll ever find me busking for money from passerby in some place like Venice Beach.   And I'm quite certain that I'll never be a star attraction juggler in any show of any sort.  Maybe a juggler, but not a star juggler--I'm not that good, never was, and not ambitious enough to put enough practice in to become one.

           Who knows what the future holds at this point.  I'm considering my options and developing a plan.  I might not be in the center ring juggling all sorts of objects, but I might be doing a different sort of juggling soon.  Hopefully I can keep everything in the air without dropping anything.

           But on the advice often given to jugglers, musicians, or anyone for that matter, if you make a mistake just keep going and act like nothing happened. As long as I'm still going on with the act, no one will even noticed that I dropped a ball.  So on I will go with metaphorical juggling.

          Did you ever work in a family business?   Did your plans of younger days match up with what the real outcome of your life was?   Was there ever a time when you split off from a business association to go off on your own in the same business?