Children often follow their parents and go into the family business. Nothing unusual about that -- unless the "family" is the circus. And the business is training wild animals, being a professional clown or flying through the air.
When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to the Baltimore Arena this month, there will be several children following in their parents' footsteps. How could they possibly choose any other life? The circus, they say, is in their blood.
"I've been training for my own act since the day I was born," says Mark Oliver Gebel. The animal trainer is the son of an animal trainer -- the noted Gunther Gebel-Williams. Mr. Gebel was born in 1970 in Houston, where the circus was touring at the time. He has traveled everywhere with his parents.
His earliest memories are of being around animals, watching his father train them. He grew up in the company of zebras, elephants, tigers and leopards.
"My father is the greatest animal trainer of all time, and I learned by watching him day after day," Mr. Gebel says. By the age of 6, being an animal trainer was his calling in life.
"I've been doing this all of my life. It's my job. My responsibilities. I've never felt pressured to do this," he says.
Not to be outdone, sister Tina Gebel-DelMoral also did not stray from the circus. She is the equestrian in the family.
"No one ever sat my brother and me down and said, 'OK, now I'm going to teach you how to care for the animals ... how to be a good performer,'" she says. "My brother and I learned it by doing and by the example of my father." When they aren't learning their trade, young family members attend a one-teacher school that travels with the big top.
The circus, Ms. Gebel-DelMoral says, is a wonderful place to raise children. "Where else could you be with them 24 hours a day and work at the same time?"
Barnum's legacy
This is the 125th year for the circus, which was founded by P. T. Barnum. The first performance of P. T. Barnum's Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome was held on April 10, 1871, in Brooklyn, New York. In 1872, Barnum's Circus begins traveling by rail, and the subtitle "The Greatest Show on Earth" was used for the first time.
The show coming to Baltimore will be a three-ring circus. As usual, one of its fixtures will be Ringling's famous clowns.
David Larible, 38, is proud to call himself a clown of a clown.
