I painted this from a photo taken when my dad, Harry Huntley, was sixteen.  By deduction, this had to be the summer of 1930.  Dad's birthday was in November, and the circus would have only been able to set up in Marshfield (now called Coos Bay), Oregon during the dry season.

In those days when the circus came to town by train, it was a big event.  The town's people lined up to watch as the elephants pulled the train cars from the tracks and over to the lot a couple of blocks away, behind where the old post office building now stands.  (Dad worked on the construction of that post office.)  Elephants were also used to set up the poles and erect the circus tents.  Dad worked as a hired hand for the circus when it was in town in 1930.  

The previous fall, his father, James Franklyn Huntley, a logger, was killed.  The donkey, a big machine used to pull over trees, pulled one over onto my grandpa James.  It was Grandpa James’ first day on the job.  Dad then quit school to support his mother.  He returned to complete his high school education several years later.

Dad was a loving, gentle man.  He told me that when he was young he had quite a temper, but I never saw it.  He refrained from saying bad things about others, although periodically he would mark people off his list.  Whatever life dished out, he toughed his way through.  As I painted this picture of him, I tried to gain a sense of what life must have been like for him.  He was a hard working man of integrity.

Dad died in 1983, just short of his 70th birthday.  I miss him.