Page 30 Spring 1995
While
he bills himself in publicity material as "The One Handed
Comedian Juggler," he makes no reference to his handicap in the
show; other than greeting volunteers with a lefthanded handshake and
the statement, "Hi, I'm Dale Jones. I shake lefty, but I'm a nice
guy!"
He
explained, "I've tried making a joke about it, but it didn't work
so I stopped. In comedy shows I'm there to be funny and show people a
good time. To get on a soapbox with my personal story only slows down
the show. People tell me they notice my hand, but then they don't
think about it. I've also had people say they didn't notice it at
all."
He
uses the one-handed reference in publicity material, and in the Yellow
Pages, because other people identify him that way. "I found out
early that I had to publicize myself that way because people were
looking for the one-handed juggler, and I wanted them to be able to
find me easily," he said.
Herein
lies the essential personal dilemma for Jones and Boehmer. Each is
left to wonder whether people respect them for the skill they have
worked so hard to perfect, or whether people notice them primarily
because the very idea of a one armed juggler seems impossible.
Jones
said he has made his peace with that question. "I just finally
realized that that you can't change what people write about you. For a
long time I wondered if they respected the work I did, or if they
thought I was just an oddity because of my hand. But I've been doing
it for years now and have gotten so many good reviews that I know I'm
good at it.
"I
wouldn't have stuck with juggling if it hadn't been so interesting to
me to be reinventing the way it's done. I wasn't blessed with any
particularly great skills, but I had to change juggling into something
I could do with it. It's not necessarily harder than regular juggling,
but it is plenty hard."
Audiences
always respond encouragingly to him, Jones said, and he concedes that
his handicap sometimes is part of the reason. "Looking back to
the beginning, I think I got a better response than I should have
because of my one hand. It happened at my first performance in the
band concert, and also when I performed in the US Nationals at the IJA
festival in Cleveland in 1981. The crowd there went nuts. I did a good
act, and I thought the
Jones
says he's proud of Casey Boehmer, and thinks the young performer can
take one armed juggling to higher levels because he is young and works
hard. But he wants Boehmer to do as he has, and earn his acclaim
honestly rather than sympathetically.
That
was the basis of a comment he made to Boehmer after seeing the tape of
Boehmer's third place finish in the IJA Juniors championships last
summer in Burlington. "He got this huge standing ovation, but the
routine didn't warrant it. He dropped a lot and never did get his
finale of five clubs in one hand despite several tries. I came right
out and told him he got the ovation because of his hand. It hurt him,
but I wanted him to know that things like that happened. The one thing
I believe in is setting high standards for yourself. Casey has got to
be prepared for the times to come when everyone's used to seeing him
on stage."
Boehmer,
the second-oldest of the ten natural children of Larry and Judy
Boehmer, was
"I
fit in good with the kids at school," he said. "They gave me
a hard time in grade school, but once they found out I can juggle and
am good at sports they accepted me. I haven't found too many things
that I can't do well except learning to drive with a stick shift. I
learned to do all the everyday things, like tying my shoes, a long
time ago. I'm pretty coordinated. I can handle a football and
basketball with one hand, and hunt rabbits and squirrels with a
rifle."
He
admits that juggling with one arm actually may be an advantage in
marketing his skills in a competitive field. "If I had two arms
I'd probably be doing what everyone else is doing. I'd rather have the
challenge of just using cine arm. The audience thinks it's
His
father, an employee of Shell Oil, had learned to juggle out of boredom
during breaks in his work on the Alaska pipeline. Emulating his
father, Casey began juggling two balls with his right hand by age
five. But that was all until Larry began putting together a family act
in 1990. That summer Larry and the three oldest children - Adam, Casey
and Keri - performed a 20-minute show at Arnolds Amusement Park in
Arnold's Park, Iowa. Larry's career required him to move frequently,
and the family act was limited for a time to occasional appearances at
nursing homes and church groups.
But
with the move to Jerseyville Larry had more time for juggling. He
began taking the kids to meet with the St. Louis Jugglers, and one day
Casey was astonished to meet Dale Jones there. Jones showed him how to
do three balls with one hand.
The
family briefly stopped in on the IJA festival in St. Louis that
summer, and attended the Public Show where Jones performed part of his
comedy act.
The
real career acceleration came at a regional festival in Charleston,
Ill., in 1991 when the family met Richard Kennison, who decided that
Casey could compete in the IJA Juniors Championships. Kennison said,
"I told Larry then, 'Lets take Casey to the Juniors.' Of course,
there was no way at that time..." |
![]() Casey Boehmer's strong right arm works double duty (Bill Giduz photo) |