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A Slice of Americana * Comes to th Seashore

By Jacob Schaad Jr. ON THE ROAD AGAIN - Dawn breaks violently on'-this summer day, a cacophony of booming thunder from laden skies streaked with flashes of lightning. Below natures’s anger a safari wends its way through the seashore roads. They are trucks, trailers, elephants, camels, lions, tigers and 150 tired nomads. By late October they will have traveled 35,000 miles in 27 states from Florida to Missouri to Illinois to New Jersey and New York. They are the tented circus, one of only seven in the United States, and for those who began this strange odyssey on March 20 in Key Largo, Florida, the Scene is not unusual. Every morning they are on the road again at 5:30, heading for another town where they will dispense laughter and excitement to young and old alike. They are a slice of Americana, a reminder of simpler days when admission was only 10 cents, when there was no competition from television or computerized games or air conditioned homes on hot and sultry nights. Still, 50 years after it was founded the Hoxie Brothers Circus is delighting thousands of people every night. On this day, as nature's noise heralds its arrival, the circus is in Cape May City before appearances in Avalon, Ocean City, Villas and Sea Isle tyWHILE MOST VACATIONERS are still asleep in their motels and guest houses, a crew of 40 men, helped by several sturdy elephants, is erecting the big top, capable of enclosing 2,000 spectators. It will be ready by 11 a m. and everything will be in place for performances at 6 and 8:15 that,# evening. Except for an afternoon parade through the city’s streets, the circus people usually relax until an hour before performance when the midway opens. The owner of the Hoxie Brothers Circus is 73-year-old Hoxie Tucker who started the three ringer a half a century ago in Miami, Fla. But the man who makes it happen day in and day (Page 2 Please)

inside: Tasty Broccoli Meet the Herons

SHOAL SECTION OF THE HERALD AND LANTERN AUGUST 11.1983