CROWN POINT | Handsome Harlow was born in a farmhouse that the circus his parents worked for just happened to be passing when his mother went into labor.
A fifth-generation circus man, Harlow, 69, was once an animal trainer, but is now the first performer onlookers see if they come out to watch the set-up of the old-fashioned Kelly Miller Circus. The Oklahoma-based circus spent Monday in Crown Point.
The public is invited to watch as the circus unloads and feeds its animals and uses its elephants to set up the tent. Harlow answers onlookers' questions and fills them in on circus life.
"I enjoy meeting people and working with the kids," he said. "The kids say the funniest things. If we wrote it all down we'd have a book."
Harlow is a soft-spoken jokester with nicknames for other workers and a lifetime of circus experience. His father was a B-movie stunt man and a circus acrobat, and his mother was a cook with the circus. Harlow has spent his entire life in show business, except for the six years he spent in the military when he was drafted for the Vietnam War.
On Monday morning, a large crowd gathered, bundled up in sweat shirts and jackets -- some with their morning coffee and others with lawn chairs. They watched the elephants raise the tent.
Harlow walked up and down the line of onlookers describing the circus and circus life. He's been with the circus so long, he can tell what's going on in the set-up just by listening.
It takes about two hours to set up the show and about 50 minutes to tear it down. It was once torn down in 45 minutes when the show was racing to beat a tornado headed its way.
If you have a circus question, Harlow can answer it. How long are you on the road? Seven days a week, 242 days in a row. How many performances do you do? Five hundred forty-six. How many people can the big tent hold? About 1,400.
While Harlow can usually name the city the circus just left, it's harder to name the next stop. The circus has a man who figures out the best route to take to the next place and lines the route with red arrows so the drivers know how to get there.
