Some wags have suggested that if you shake a tree in the Sarasota region, a circus artist will fall out. "Circus," by the way, is the same as any reference to anyone within the U.S. Marine Corps. You know the old phrase - once a Marine, always a Marine? Ditto circus.
Holding fast to the circus tradition in Sarasota is Bob Horne. He runs Bob's Train in back of the old Stottlemeyer lumber yard north of Fruitville Road.
Bob's Train is a string of, well, train cars, four in fact including an under-construction JoMar, the car that Mable and John Ringling used as they traversed the country with the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus early last century.
Bob's dining fare for breakfast and lunch is good, reasonably priced and fun, but the real fun comes from touring the circus memorabilia he's got lining the walls of his choo-choos. Pictures galore, posters galore. He says a zippy trip through memory lane takes at least a half hour; most people with any three-ring love will take at least three hours.
SARASOTA'S CIRCUS PAST
Take yourself back to the late 1920s. John Ringling - entrepreneur, circus magnate, art collector, leading Sarasota power broker and man-about-town - steps onto the plaza fronting his palatial home on the shores of Sarasota Bay. It's dawn, and Ringling has just concluded one of his legendary all-night poker games.
As the sun rises behind him, he surveys the bay. The vista before him is his own, from St. Armands and Bird Key in the south to Longboat Key in the west, a portion of the vast tracts of land he has acquired in Florida as part of his development plans.
Ringling's dream was to create an opulent residential development on the "Ringling Isles" of the keys, with a luxurious hotel and expansive homes lining a boulevard stretching from the mainland of Sarasota north to Anna Maria Island.
His dream would eventually became a reality, but not in his lifetime. Millions of visitors have admired the same view Ringling had that early morning from his plaza, enjoying tours of his home, his art collection and the grounds of what would eventually become Florida's state museum. Thousands more would live on the barrier islands of Lido, St. Armands and Longboat keys.
Ringling would eventually bequeath his grand art galleries, brimming with 17th-century Old Masters, Mable's rose gardens and ornate and exotic-sounding Ca' d'Zan mansion, all set on a postcard-perfect waterfront scene on Sarasota Bay, to the state when the stock market crashed and his investments soured. But while the boom lasted, John Ringling had grand plans for Sarasota, envisioning a highly cultured mecca to lure the elite to the sunny shores of Florida - plans that eventually helped mold Sarasota into the cultured city it is today.
Despite obstacles, among them deep budget cuts, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art today stands as a jewel of the state, sparkling as a cultural legacy to the famous circus showman and his wife.
It was a legacy the couple was never able to savor together; Mable Ringling suddenly took ill and died several months before the museum's opulent doors opened in late 1929. John Ringling never got over the loss, according to Bradenton historian David C. Weeks, author of "Ringling: The Florida Years, 1911-1936," who spent years researching the myths behind the man.
John Ringling was indeed a mythical man in an era of business giants. His Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus became "The Greatest Show on Earth." In an effort to bring that same greatness to his personal life, Ringling spent lavishly on paintings and art objects from around the world, storing them in locations all over the United States.
At the time of his death in 1936, John Ringling had amassed 625 paintings and at least that many other pieces of art. Some of those paintings hung on the gallery walls when the doors to the Ringling Museum first opened to the public - March 30, 1930.
Upon his death, Ringling's entire estate, including Ca' d'Zan, the Ringlings' winter home, and the museum and the art collection, became the property of Florida. The bequest was Ringling's gift to the people of the state.
As it is the state museum, more treasures were added, including every brick, tile and chair from a 19th-century theater in Asolo, Italy. The theater was dismantled, shipped to Sarasota and re-assembled. There are also five world-renowned tapestry cartoons by Peter Paul Rubens; late Medieval and Renaissance works by Italian and Northern European artists; an array of paintings by French, Dutch and Flemish artists; prints, drawings; decorative arts; contemporary works; and circus-history artifacts, including the internationally renown Hemisphere Wagon.
The Circus Galleries offer a glimpse into life under the big top, with posters, prints, drawings and photographs, as well as many carved circus wagons, costumes and props used by famous performers.
Ca' d'Zan - the name means "House of John" in the Venetian dialect - blends touches of Italian and French Renaissance with Baroque, Venetian Gothic and modern architecture.
Today, visitors to the Ringling Museum can wander through the beautiful galleries or stroll through the lovely garden courtyard rimmed with the treasures Ringling collected.
Ringling's gifts to the region are more than the museum, grounds and Ca' d'Zan. Ringling the entrepreneur bought more than 30,000 acres of prime ranch land in eastern Sarasota County. He bought and developed St. Armand and Lido keys. He also envisioned beautiful homes on Longboat Key and purchased more than 1,900 acres of the barrier island.
He purchased the El Vernona Hotel and renamed it the John Ringling Hotel. It was one of the most opulent hotels during its heyday, famous for lavish entertainment, including Ringling's favorite circus acts. Actors emerged from beneath the elevated stage; animals were ushered through the front entrance. High fliers hooked their trapezes to the ceiling beams.
Among the famous personalities who stayed at the hotel were Will Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, Dorothy Lamour, Tom Mix, Charlton Heston, Helen Hayes, Bette Davis and David Niven.
Another hotel, the Ritz-Carlton on southern Longboat Key, was under construction when Ringling's world collapsed in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash. Ringling's grand plans for the area were dashed as much of his fortune disappeared in those black days.
But Ringling's legacy - Italian statues he bought during stops in Venice, Rome and Naples - still dot the highways and boulevards of Sarasota and St. Armands Circle.
The legacy John and Mable Ringling left is honored and partially maintained at Bob's Train. Thank you, Bob.
... AND BEYOND
One of the biggest circus fans was my late buddy Bob Ardren, former director of the circus museum at Ringling and a huge fan of the big top.
Go to Bob's Trailer and look right, and a picture of Bob will be grinning back at you.
