For a while the beamish boy
and I have spoken of doing a photo session
of him as a clown. Yesterday we did.
Bought him a clown nose at
Junk for Joy on Magnolia in Burbank
("but we only have black ones," we were
told. Hey - any clown nose will do...)
and put together this outfit and a
hat with flowers and based his
makeup on that of Billy Beck. I knew
that with his face and countenance
he would make a wonderful clown and I
was quite right.

We shot this on a sunny
Sunday in June -and many more-
many with him being a very sad clown-
by what is left of the old railroad tracks
on Chandler in Burbank.
While we were doing it a cop car
came by and said, over the loudspeaker,
"Private property. Move on."
I pointed to myself with questioning eyes-
he nodded from his car and said,
"Do it somewhere else."
Fortunately I had already show
more than a hundred photos -
but Jonah and I laughed all the
way to the Iliad Bookstore, where
we stopped - at the thought of
being thrown into clown jail -
where many other
imprisoned clowns would be.

At the Iliad, our favorite bookstore,
Jonah walked in sans hat or nose -
the guy at the counter said,
"A modern-day Fagin? Good way to
make a buck. And his partner said, "Yeah -
check your pockets..."
I told him Jonah didn't have any books
and just needed one - this Oz book -
and Jonah looked at him with
pleading sad clown eyes
as if to say,
"Please sir - just one?"
We ended up paying.

Assembly of the return crank, spherical bearing, eccentric rod, expansion link and radius rod for a 7 1/4" gauge LNER A4.These are to replace parts from a kit built loco.