Lost in the post-election furor and the inauguration of President Donald Trump was another story signaling a profound change in our nation: the shuttering of Ringling Brother & Barnum and Bailey combined shows this coming May.

In the 1950s, when I was a young boy, I was fortunate enough to see Ringling Brothers under both canvas and indoors at Madison Square Garden. It was quite a show from both a performance standpoint and also, in the case of the tented circus, that it could erect in just a few short hours what amounted to a small town, give several shows and be gone the next day leaving an empty field behind.

In my hometown a wealthy businessman was a huge circus fan. He owned two fields that he designated as circus lots and every few years he brought a medium-size circus, the Mills Brothers Circus, to town. It was neither as big or as glamorous as the Ringling show but it had three rings, clowns and all the things that made a circus a circus. From 1940 to 1966, this circus traveled throughout the Midwest, New York, Pennsylvania and New England and often made stops in Chautauqua County in Jamestown, Brocton and Dunkirk.

As I grew older, I lost interest in circuses. Someone once said that circuses are for children of all ages so my waning interest probably says more about me than the circus. Except for Ringling Brothers clowns Emmet Kelly and Lou Jacobs, I never found circus clowns particularly funny, just funny looking. While today’s circus clowns appear more user friendly I always wondered if those of my youth were hiding out from the law for some heinous crime, like the one Jimmie Stewart played in the movie “The Greatest Show on Earth” who never took his clown makeup off.

Yet when I heard recently that Ringling Brothers, “the Greatest Show on Earth,” was shutting down I felt a touch of sadness.  Times change and so does taste in entertainment particularly in our digital age with videogames, streaming movies and television shows at our finger tips all on a variety of devices to say nothing of the lure of social media. Today many go to fewer outside events and are happy to entertain themselves at home.

Circuses have been a fixture in this country since before the founding of the Republic and Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey began shortly after the Civil War and I guess I thought that like the sun and moon Ringling Brothers would be around long after me.

There was a time, before movies, radio, television and the internet when traveling circuses brought the outside world to isolated towns throughout our nation in the form of exotic animals and circus performers from around the world. To those interested in that time I recommend Author Walter D. Edmond’s book “Chad Hanna,” which takes place in a traveling circus in upstate New York in the early 19th Century.

In the end it was not only changing tastes that killed the “Greatest Show on Earth” but the exotic animals it showcased. There have been rare cases of animal neglect and deaths throughout circus history, but shows like Ringling Brothers cared for their animals because of the large investment and their importance to the show. Ringling Brothers employed a full-time veterinary staff to care for its animals and has been at the forefront of breeding programs for the endangered species used in its shows.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) sued Ringling Brothers under the Endangered Species Act for mistreating its Asian elephants. After years of litigation and a six-week trial, the court dismissed the case and ordered the animal rights groups to pay $25.2 million for making false allegations. Subsequently the Ringling Brothers sued the animal rights groups under the RICO laws — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — accusing them of attempting to harm Ringling Brothers’ business with the circus winning a total of $9.2 million.

In 2015 after years of fighting suits and because of a patchwork of local laws governing the use of animals in performances, Ringling Brothers announced that its elephants would be retired in 2018. That date was later moved up to May 1.

Now Ringling Brothers, a name that means ‘the circus” to many, is closing for good in May. Smaller shows will still tour different parts of the nation, still delighting fans, but it will never be the same for many, even for me.

Finally, if you never saw Ringling Brothers under canvas, or indoors for that matter, you should see 1952’s “The Greatest Show on Earth” directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It’s a great movie and a lot of fun. Shot in glorious three-strip Technicolor, it stars Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, Cornel Wide and Jimmie Stewart along with Emmet Kelly and other circus performers. It depicts Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows as it was in those last years under canvas. Look for it on Turner Classic Movies.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com