The Flying Wallendas at the Union Fair

If you like the circus, and I do, the name Wallenda sends a spark of excitement into your blood as surely as the smell of the lions and tigers and elephants. I wanted to run away with the circus every time it came to town - and who didn't? - not to join the Wallendas, but to play with the animals, yet always, those tightrope walkers, high in the almost darkened peak of the huge tent, had me holding my breath with hundreds, wishing as hard as anyone ever wished for Tinkerbell to come back to life, to see them safely to ground. But this wasn't the circus! Was it?

The Flying Wallendas have a unique and colorful history, as in fame, glory and tragedy. Memory, especially mine, is faulty; I thought there were horses and trapezes...for the Wallendas, it's all about the wire.

Tino Wallenda, grandson of the great Karl Wallenda

Aureila, daughter of Tino and Olinka,

The Leap!

Laurie sent me an excerpt from this article, which tells some wonderful Wallenda family history:

"Mario [Karl's son, who was paralyzed 1962, due to an infamous fall of the Seven Person  Pyramid, two other members died] almost pulled the feat off as part of a condo promotion, agreeing to transverse a wire across Midnight Pass. "We had it all set, the $5,000 down and everything. But we couldn't get the permit," says Mario, incredulous, rising in his seat as if to leap out of the chair. "They were worried about liability. Liability? There is no liability. Hell, I wouldn't do it if I thought I would fall!" Sixth-generation wire walker Tino Wallenda's father is the legendary Alberto Zoppe, a bareback-horse-riding daredevil whose specialty was a backwards somersault from horse to horse. As a two-year-old, Tino rode his father's shoulders as he circled the ring standing astride two galloping horses. After Zoppe divorced Jenny Wallenda, a custody battle ended when Jenny snatched four-year-old Tino during a circus where both families were performing, and brought him back to Sarasota--a traumatic event Tino describes in detail in his book, Walking the Straight and Narrow."

Tino, son Alex, Trevor McNabb and daughter Aureila

Discovery Channel said about the [Tino Wallenda]: "In the rarified world of aerialists, Tino Wallenda is royalty." With the eighth generation of the Wallendas now in the act and hundreds of years of spectacular circus tradition to uphold, the family has secured not only a place in history, but also a place in the Guinness Book of World Records with an Eight-Person Pyramid on the high wire, and a 2004 win at the prestigious Circus Festival at Monte Carlo. Tino Wallenda has "walked over dens of lions and tigers, between buildings, across rivers, and over a pool that contained more than 50 'man-eating' sharks." With all the fame and acclaim, however, he is best known for his simple, yet powerful, message of fearless faith breathtakingly delivered from the high wire. In Walking the Straight and Narrow Tino shares the lessons in faith and life he learned from the high wire! With all of that history, I could barely believe it; here they were, for the second year in a row, at the Union Fair in Union, Maine. As one blogger, a cruiser from England, wrote about last year's show "Why they should be appearing at a (nationally) obscure fair in Maine and performing for no additional cost to our entrance fee, I don’t know, but there they were." I wanted a ringmaster! I wanted 5000 more people (though there was a big crowd, the biggest I'd seen all day), I wanted to say, You don't NEED clowns - sorry, J.P., it would be like trying to be the headliner for the Beatles. The reunited Beatles. I thought I wanted trapezes, but that was me being confused. So, probably 45 or so years since the last time I saw the Wallendas, I got to see them again. And I wasn't ready. There's a lesson in here, but I'm still trying to articulate it to myself...it could be as simple as, "MJ, you're a jerk sometimes." Or there might be something deeper. We'll see about that...