This thread has contributed a lot to bettering my attitude with those we'd like to strangle when doing a craft show demo.

We did a show today as a matter of fact. I had several walk up whose grandfather etc was a blacksmith. I heard the same joke about pickin up the hot horseshoe 3 times.

But we had to run the propane forge today because of high winds and so many vendors being right next to us. It was late in the day and I was TIRED! This one guy walks up and calls me a cheater for using propane. Told me I was to have coal and a bellows or a crank blower. I told him to stick his hand in there to see if the fire was hot enough. And did he really think that if they had had propane and gas burners back then, would those blacksmiths have used it? And finally I said with a big ole grin on my face, Can't you read the sign?!?
I have a sign posted on my anvil base that reads:

Please Do Not
Feed
Poke or
Tease the
Blacksmith

At which point I grabbed my hammer and said," Don't make me use this!" It was all in good fun, but I got my point across. Nobody likes to be called a cheater for any reason. Besides, I still swing that hammer just as hard.

One time back around '90 I was working at an antique power (tractor) show. A gentleman who had to be well into into his 80s came up and with him was a frail old man who had to be 100+. This older man just lit up when he saw several of us set up and working. He said his uncle had been THE blacksmith for the Barnum and Bailey Circus when they had travelled everywhere by train. He didn't say much more than that and they moved on but it got me thinking of all the things that man would have to manufacture and maintain. All of the shoed animals of course, the iron for the many many wagons, riggings and chain for tents, tent stakes. Maybe even contraptions for trapeze and other aerial acts. He almost certainly would also have had some part in the show itself. Just something to think about.

Back in '87, when I was on our honeymoon with my first wife, we stopped at Sarasota,Fl at the Ringling Museum, they were in the process of renovating the Blacksmith Wagon which was offlimits to visitors. But, I recieved special permission from the museum administrator to have unsupervised access to the Wagon and its contents which were removed and all layed out at the time, when the lady found out I was a third generation smith. Rather large for a Wagon, but not for a Circus Wagon.