The clowns spent all day Sept. 29, performing at the library for residents and friends at the library. It was a presentation of the Fern Street Circus from San Diego, which has taught the arts of clowning for 25 years.

The free event was a project headed by librarian Colleen Baker and Friends of the Library, who started working on it last March.

The company moved to Julian for a day of fun of teaching and learning the arts of clowning. The circus offered free clowning classes, acrobatic tumbling, dancing and playing with a variety of hoops, tightrope walking,

"I think so many parts of the day's events were very exciting, especially for the kids, Lynne Jarman, one of the workers, noted. "I could see the kids lined up for tumbling and gymnastics with Idrissa; hula hoops were flying everywhere; and a lot of the small kids enjoyed their time playing acrobat and hoop artist.

The community helped make the day beautiful. The Woman's Club provided lots of delicious cakes for the cakewalk. The Tribal Mountain Gypsies brought some of us to our feet with belly dancing.

The line for face painting was long and continuous; we had so many children (and some adults) who lined up for beautiful and fun painting on their shoulders and arms.

The event went way beyond clowning.