GRADUATION DAY, 1940 (flash fiction)

Look at them. Dumb as it sounds, these chaps chucked it all and gathered enough scratch to put themselves through Clown College during the Great Depression.

Some would stowaway to Europe and practice their craft in an elegant manner while others would stay in the States, hopping onto carnies in the Dust Bowl that migrated towards California and the movies.

The rugged types, though, usually headed towards either the big rodeos of the Southwest or The Steel Pier in Atlantic City (the latter needing brutish men for that inhumane diving horses act).

Whatever the case, people pointed and made a fool of them but at the end of the day, there was money in their pockets. Not much, mind you, but it beat standing on the bread line in the rain.