 |
|
     |
|
|
The Big "C" Sirkus was once one of the great traditions of the University. It was designed to raise money for the Big "C" Society, the prestigious group of Cal lettermen that promoted and supported varsity sports, as it does today. In 1936, I was a Big "C" Society officer, and the job of organizing that year's Big "C" Sirkus fell to me. It was a huge job, but a lot of fun. In fact, though it delayed my graduation, managing the Sirkus was one of the highlights of my college days. The first Sirkus ever staged on campus was held in April 1911, when Berkeley students put on a vaudeville show to entertain a group of visiting high school track athletes. The event was repeated every year, becoming "spectacular and elaborate," in the words of the 1914 Blue and Gold. The Sirkus was an evening of carnival-type fun, and it originally followed a traditional day of hard work. This was the quadrennial University Labor Day, which began in 1896 and was scheduled for February 29--Leap Year Day. As a gift to their alma mater, Cal students hefted picks and shovels and spent the day landscaping the campus and digging paths and roadways. In 1916, for example, it was decided to build a path up to the Big "C" on the hill, which had been built in 1905. More than a thousand students volunteered, and the Southern Pacific Company loaned them a thousand shovels. The students were stationed a few feet apart in a line snaking down from the "C" to the road below, set to dig, and in a couple of hours a path had been carved in the side of the hill. As was traditional, the 1936 Sirkus began with a parade. Fraternities, sororities, and non-org groups created 92 floats that stretched for over half a mile. Competition among them was keen. Many of the floats were very clever and colorful, and they varied from the serious to the hilarious, with satire a prevalent theme. Some were a bit on the risque side. Because of criticism in previous years about some of the off-color floats, we tried to have a faculty member censor them. We appealed to Elmer Goldsworthy, the dean for undergraduates, but he turned us down. He simply said, "Your judgment in this area is as good as mine." Luckily, we persuaded University President Robert Gordon Sproul to be one of the judges, along with several other faculty members. The floats assembled near the fraternity houses that then stood on the north side of campus. The procession started with a firecracker-type bomb blast that was heard for miles. Led by the Cal Marching Band and a car bearing Sirkus Queen Billie Withers '38, the parade wound its way along the north side of the campus to the west side, up Bancroft Way to Fraternity Row, and then back to Telegraph Avenue and through Sather Gate to the Campanile, where the judges presided. The parade, which tied up Berkeley traffic for two hours, was a great success, with large crowds along the route. On Edwards Field, a circus tent the size of a football field was erected to house a 60-booth midway. It had all the traditional carnival-type games, and sideshow skits featured talent from various school organizations. Cotton candy, pink lemonade, barkers, and a blaring steam calliope all added to the carnival atmosphere. To stock the Wheel of Chance booth, we bought 500 pounds of See's candy (only 25 cents a pound in 1936). The Ham Wheel provided a few laughs. Armour had donated 25 large hams to use as prizes, and when these were gone, the booth operators gave away the six display hams. It wasn't until the next day that we found out that the display hams were made from sawdust. We quickly placated six very angry people with real hams and a note of apology; the real prize would have been witnessing that initial cut into sawdust. The most popular event was the "Nickel Jig," held in Harmon Gym with music by Don Mulford '38, whose band was well known in the Bay Area. Ballroom dancing was all the rage, and the dancing went on from 8 p.m. until well after midnight. The large dance floor was constantly crowded. Getting the dancers on and off of the dance floor and collecting their nickel tickets could have been a problem, but the dozen football players running the dance did the job superbly. As a publicity stunt, we had elected the Sirkus queen in conjunction with a raffle for a new Dodge car. Tickets for the raffle cost 10 cents each, three for a quarter, with each ticket buying one vote for the queen. In retrospect, it wasn't the most egalitarian way to pick a queen, but it raised a lot of money, since people stuffed the ballot box with 10-cent tickets. (Sign of the times: we paid a Cal alum the dealer cost for a brand-new Dodge, $650.) The organizational aspects of the Sirkus presented some interesting challenges. Before the event, for example, we contacted the Berkeley police department to get help with security. They told us that they had no jurisdiction on the campus and that we should contact Mr. Warren, the Alameda County district attorney. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that he was a Cal alum as well as a Big "C" man. We told Mr. Warren we planned to have a "'49er Camp" with crap stables and blackjack tables. He sternly informed us that gambling was illegal in California, and if he received a complaint, he would have to raid us. Then he smiled, and said that any raid would take place the following day (by which time we would be long gone). He then suggested we forget we had ever visited his office! The helpful district attorney was Earl Warren '12, later to become governor of California and ultimately Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1936 Sirkus grossed almost $13,000, with a net profit of $7,500, which was given to the athletic department. That was an impressive amount in those days, but the best thing about the Sirkus was that it involved so many people. Of the 15,000-odd students on campus then, at least three quarters joined in. The fraternities and sororities and many non-org groups worked together as they built the floats, manned the booths, wrote and participated in the skits, handled security, sold and took tickets, and did countless other jobs. And they all had a good time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The head of a large Blue and Gold family, Nate Rubin '36 is a retired businessman and community volunteer in the Los Angeles area. The Big C Sirkus was first held in 1911, interrupted by World War I, revived in 1921, halted again by World War II, then held annually between 1946 and 1953. It was revived a few times in the early 1960s, but never drew the crowds it once did. |
| |||||||||||
| About
CAA Contact
Us
Update
your Address CAA Career Opportunities Privacy Policy |
©2009 California Alumni
Association. All Rights Reserved For questions about CAA: info@alumni.berkeley.edu Technical inquiries: web@alumni.berkeley.edu
|
Alumni House Berkeley, CA 94720-7520 Toll-Free: (888) CAL-ALUM Phone: (510) 642-7026 Fax: (510) 642-6252
|
