Fix Coulrophobia… Now!

I love clowns.  I always have.  When I was five I wanted to be a clown.  Red Skelton is my personal hero and role model, the reason I became a teacher, to use my clown skills for good  rather than evil.  But sinister folks who think they are joking are seriously jeopardizing all of that.

In 1988 I did watch and enjoy the movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  It was funny.  And I liked Stephen King’s “It” as a horror movie.  It was definitely scary.  But 2016 has become the year of the creepy clown.  Why would any idiot want to dress up in an expensive horror-clown mask and clown suit to wave at somebody’s security camera at two in the morning?  And, Mr. Idiot, did you at least try to figure out if the home owner was a gun owner in an open carry State?  One of the recent clowns to be arrested turned out to be a teenage boy… you know, the ultimate planner and thinker-ahead-er.

I would like to propose that we prosecute a case or two of creepy clowns in the woods at night with a mandatory “How to Love a Clown” class.  After all, clowns are a worthy thing.  How many clowns over how many years have handed out candy to kids and brought a smile to small faces during a Fourth of July parade?  How many circus clowns like the Great Emmett Kelly made us laugh with a pantomime routine?  How many Shrine Circus clowns helped entertain us and raise money to fight childhood disease and cancer?  Bob Keeshan who was Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody helped raise me and make me the person I am now as Captain Kangaroo.  The real creepy clown crime is that they are taking the image of a clown, which is a very good thing, and turning it into something bleak and horrifying.  My purpose for this post is to remind you of the good things about the people under the face paint.  I want you to remember a few of these.