Drinks With A Clown
We’ll post soon about the beautiful day out we all had together yesterday, but I’ve got 10 minutes before I need to awaken the final child so we can complete our packing before heading to the airport for our flight to Vienna. I thought a post about Bud’s and my final outing here in Berlin was in order.
I had told Buddie I’d like one final walk about before we left Germany, but I knew he was tired. I was touched to learn he kept his shoes on the whole time we were in the apartment after all our outings because he knew of he took off his shoes he was done.
Those of you who know him know he hates wearing shoes. This was no small sacrifice he made for me.
On our outing we slunk around the hospital, as the previous post described, walked down to see what “The Bubble Church” looked like up close (My name for the dome we could see in the distance. Turns out it’s a beautiful synagogue.),
rode the East Berlin tram a final time, checked to see if the Rewe City grocery store was open (We had a bet riding on that. I lost), and then we finally settled in at a brew pub to drink some radlers and laugh and connect.
We were sitting on a main thoroughfare at Hackescher Markt. When we first settled in for our drinks, a Kenny G-esque saxophonist was entertaining the crowd.
After he left, a tall, slender, white man with a green sport coat, red felt bowler hat… and a red 🤡 nose began to stroll between the restaurants on either side of the walking pathway through the market.
Buds and I were seated far enough back that we could relax and just enjoy the developing scene play out. This clown had his routine well laid out, and it was fascinating to watch the progression leading to success.
His entire act consisted of following unsuspecting folks, mimicking their walk or actions from behind for the amusement of the crowd. It took around ten minutes for those of us on the sides to begin to engage with him. He really did have to earn the attention of the crowd.
I very much appreciated that he wasn’t earning his humor at the expense of the folks he followed or mimicked. He wasn’t mocking them. He worked to gain their attention too so they could join in the joke.
His schtick went on for about 30 minutes, and by the end people were completely engaged and sparkly-eyed with laughter. He only got the middle finger once from an unamused older white man. Everyone else; local, tourist, young, old, if they noticed him teasing them, they laughed and laughed.
We visited awhile longer, talking of our future plans, discussing what we’ve loved about this trip, sharing stories of the children, but mostly just being together.
Berlin has been good for us.
