His efforts were blessed by officials and an  impressive crowd of 40 people showed up for the gathering in San Mateo, Calif. Dollarhide was elected president and expressed a desire to get the IJA growing again and "make juggling a more popular form of recreation for people of all ages."   The IJA was back in business, and Art's dream survived its nadir to survive at least until its 50th anniversary! 

Looking at it all from age 85 or 86, Art has learned to filter memories and dwell on the good times rather than the bad. He's learned that there's no health gained through worry or bad memories. In typical Jennings fashion, he found an aphorism to illustrate his point: "It's like the old lady who said to me, 'I think you must have a good word for even the devil.' I replied to her, 'Well, you must agree that he's persistent!'" 

The "golden era" he enjoyed disappeared long ago. It has been swept away by mass media that exposes a performer to millions of people nationwide in an instant, and which gives people an economical alternative to the theatre by ?? bringing entertainment directly to their living rooms. Always hungry for something new, the media eats up and digests performers at a rate unheard of in former times. Jennings remembered, "Stan Kavanaugh told me he hadn't changed a move in his ar,tin-20 years ' p because it created a type of perfection that agents demanded. You sure can't do that any , more. Once you hit ,/ television and your act is exposed, you have to change it if you want to get on again. My old publicity material used to say 'he's made thousands laugh.' These days millions of people see you at once." 

He has personally learned that growth can come from unpleasant situations, recalling a time that he was "ripped up one side and down the other" for comments he made in a speech at an International Brotherhood of Magicians convention about magic education. He wrote to an officer of the association to say how upset he was, and the officer wrote back, "Art, just remember. The bigger the tree, the more wind it catches. Be proud you're a big tree." 

He hasn't always agreed with the direction of the organization, either. He believes the introduction of competitions in 1969 profoundly affected the organizational philosophy. "In my world as a performer my object was to entertain the audience," he said. "With juggling as competitive sport, it's the audience be damned, the performer is only in it for personal glory."

He believes a better use of resources would be to establish a stage situation in which performers would be videotaped and constructively evaluated by a panel of experts. "I still think of juggling as an art, and an art isn't for the benefit of the artist, but for the audience." 

To help assert his values onto modern festivals, he created in 1991 the IJA Founders Award to honor the festival act that best represents successful acts of yore - those that created definite character, were expertly executed on stage, and had a beginning, middle and end. Art gathers a committee of elders 'round him at the festival to deliberate on the qualifiers, and presents the winner with a hand-crafted statue of himself as the Bum Juggler. 

His senior status in the organization has made him a natural champion for juggling history as well. At one point he identified a school building that the IJA could have had "for a song," but the organization's finances at the time couldn't manage even a few notes. Earlier this decade he worked long and hard to have juggling archives maintained at San Antonio's Herzburg Circus Museum. That effort, complicated by legalities of ownership of the material, was finally thwarted completely by a change in administrations that shuffled the juggling archives off of the museum's priority list. Understandably, one of his greatest concerns is that the history he and his generation created will be lost. "There are so few really knowledgeable about our history," he said. "Time doesn't change history, historians change it." 

He looks at the past much more philosophically now, and surveys his 50 years with the IJA with a sense of both parental pride and concern. Likewise, he views his own contributions to the art with mixed emotion. He still loves to play to the crowd, but his physical condition won't allow him to juggle. So he makes talks occasionally about his life and juggling. 

At festivals these days he's never without his hand crafted silver bolo of the IJA logo. He designed the association's logo back in 1997 and crafted the bolo to wear at the 1987 festival. He cast the date, "1987," in the design at that time and has updated the year each year since. So this year the bolo will say "1997," the IJA's 50th anniversary year. He said this is it, that he won't change the date again. 

He'll participate to the fullest again. Now that his mobility is restricted, he'll probably take a seat somewhere near the center of the action, regaling anyone who stops by with stories of vaudeville, or IJA politics, or flying or woodworking or anything. It won't be hard to get him started on a subject, but it might be impossible to get him to stop! He pointed out, "When I graduated from high school in the '20s it said under my picture, 'Art's thoughts are free,' and they have been ever since!" 

He'll also put on a tuxedo to show his respect for the organization and juggling on Wednesday night, when he'll receive the IJA's "Extraordinary Service Award." He promises his speech on that occasion will be brief, though it won't be easy to contain all he feels in a few paragraphs. 

Most of his feelings, though, are probably summed up in another of his oft repeated sayings: "Thank God I didn't rust out, I'm wearing out!"

The Bum Juggler takes a break.

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