4 minute read
Cover Story: Clowning Around Town
CLOWNING AROUND TOWN
By Dave Person david.r.person@gmail.com
Advertisement
Their ranks may be thinning, but there are still clowns around ready to clown around. You’ll fi nd them at festivals, in parades, at corporate picnics and at children’s birthday parties. “Anytime we’re invited out into the community we just go,” says Donna Wilinski, also known as M.T. Pockets. “It’s a high, it’s a joy, it’s a joyful thing to do,” says Wilinski, who has been clowning for 31 years and is an offi cer of The Grand and Glorious Mid-Michigan Galaxy of Clowns Alley 44, to which Kalamazoo clowns belong. Jack VanderBeek, also an offi cer with Alley 44, had quite a following as he walked his invisible dog, Doggone, through Kindleberger Park during Parchment’s annual Kindleberger Summer Festival in July. VanderBeek, known as R.T. Arty when he’s clowning, holds a leash attached to a seemingly empty harness. When the children — and adults — gather round, his unseen dog performs for them, lying down, sitting and rolling over. VanderBeek, 74, says he owes a debt of gratitude to Jerry Campbell, known as Jerry the Clown, who was a regular at the Kalamazoo County Fair for many years, as well as many other local events. “Jerry got me started over 50 years ago,” VanderBeek says. “Jerry did so much for everybody,” says Sharon Fulkerson, 65, a 37-year veteran of clowning whose alter ego is Jingle the Clown. “He participated in everything. Whenever you would have events he would go. He was funny. He was friendly to everybody. “He would reach out if you needed help. … Jerry was very good at helping with anything. He always had time.”
So when Fulkerson, a former Alley 44 offi cer, heard that Campbell was in hospice care last spring, she gathered several Covid-weary Kalamazoo area clowns and paid him and his wife, Sally, a visit outside their Plainwell home.
Campbell, 85, wearing his red clown nose, was thrilled, as were his family, friends and neighbors who turned out for the event.
Campbell died a week later. After their visit with Campbell, the clowns went to the Kalamazoo retirement village of another of their former members, Larry Loofboro, who was known as Loofy the Clown. They paraded down his street to the amusement of his neighbors. “People dressed up that hadn’t dressed up in years … but they did it for Jerry and Larry,” says Wilinski, 69, who hadn’t been in costume and makeup since before Covid started.
“Those two men taught us so much,” she says. “They were our mentors, so we are indebted to them.” Mentorship is a way of life for clowns. Fulkerson says she used to camp near Decatur, where Loofboro and VanderBeek and their families also camped, and they got her interested. She ended up going to clown camp in Wisconsin to hone her skills. “I trained Donna and her daughter, Anna,” Fulkerson says. Anna Wilinski-Massano, who now lives in Argentina, was about 10 years old then, and her desire to be a clown at that tender age was what drew her mother into the fold as well.
Wilinski says M.T. Pockets has found herself in some unusual circumstances, for a clown. “I’ve done funeral visitations, on request of the family; I performed at a wedding — I didn’t offi ciate, but I did play the handbells,” she says. Wilinski kept the chain of recruiting new clowns going by starting a clown school through Kalamazoo Community Education in 2002. It continued for about 10 years. “Everybody in the Alley helped,” she says. “We usually had 10 or 12 folks in a class. … We ended up with six or seven really lifelong, committed clowns.” People were still reeling from the 9-11 attacks the year before, which was a big part of the reason Wilinski started the class.
“The reason I did it is that we need a reason to laugh, and we don’t have enough clowns,” she says. Local clowns also formed the Alley 44 Clown Care Unit about that time with one branch entertaining patients and visitors at the West Michigan Cancer Center a couple times a month and another making monthly visits to different nursing homes in the area. VanderBeek, as R.T. Arty, has been a staple on the clown circuit for the past half century. He worked the Wine & Harvest Festival in Paw Paw for 45 years and has performed at different venues across the Midwest.. He also was certifi ed by McDonald’s to perform as Ronald McDonald for 18 years. There are about 25 clowns in Alley 44, covering all of Mid-Michigan, with about eight of them in Kalamazoo, according to VanderBeek. His children were involved in clowning at one time, as were Campbell’s, in addition to Wilinski’s daughter and the children of other clowns, but few of the younger generation are continuing the art of clowning. However, those who have been at it for a while show no signs of slowing down. “We’re in it for the giggles and grins and fun, and what we can do for the community,” VanderBeek says. “People have given me so much joy in my lifetime, it’s the least I can do,” Wilinski says. “It’s just another way to serve.
