Rarely do I come across an obscure book put out by a small publisher that totally blows me away. That just happened, when my savvy stepson Andy Barker gave me a book entitled, “Circle of Sawdust: A Circus Memoir of Mud, Myth, Mirth, Mayhem and Magic.” The book was written by Andy’s friend Rob Mermin, a fellow Vermont visionary.

This superb book chronicles the life of a guy drawn to the magic of the circus ever since he was a young lad. In 1969, at age 19, he convinced a friend to go to Europe because he wanted to “run off and join a circus.” They managed to get jobs (Rob as a clown and his friend doing grunt work) in England with the sketchy, colorful, rules-be-damned Hoffman Brothers Circus, which billed itself as “The Wildest Show on Earth.”

“It was an archetype of the old one-ring traveling ‘mud show,’ a moniker from the old days, when rain mired the horse-drawn wagons in the soft muddy lots.” Rob’s friend wasn’t enamored of the realities of circus life, but Rob was smitten.

After his adventures with the Hoffman Brothers Circus, Rob headed off to Paris alone to study mime under the renowned Marcel Marceau. While he loved mime, he still dreamed of being in the circus. Youthful chutzpah combined with sheer luck got him a job as a clown with the famed Cirkus Benneweis in Copenhagen, one of the world’s oldest family dynasties, which dates back to 1887. The heart of the book describes the chaotic charm of his time with Cirkus Benneweis, which featured top acts from around the world.

In 1987, Rob founded Circus Smirkus, a nonprofit, award-winning international youth circus. Based in Greensboro, Vermont, Circus Smirkus promotes the skills, culture and traditions of the traveling circus. (Tina and I thoroughly enjoyed a performance by Circus Smirkus in Sarasota, Florida in the late 1990s.)

While Rob’s descriptions of circus life were always entertaining, his thoughtful asides elevated this book to must-read status.

At one point, he was traveling to elementary schools around New England creating “Circus Residencies.” He’d immerse the school in the circus world and on the final night put on a show for the community. “The most memorable circus residency was at a small physical therapy institution outside of Boston for kids with severe physical disabilities. I was invited to create a circus there with its thirty young residents.”

The show, a roaring success, prompted Rob to reflect, “We all have our share of personal disabilities to deal with. No one gets away in life without physical, psychological, or emotional struggles hitting us hard at times. I know first-hand the difficulties of surviving cancer, depressions, a broken neck, living with Parkinson’s and other common and profound ailments of living. We usually handle these difficulties privately, not in public. But some disabilities cannot be hidden.”

In 1999, Rob convinced Marcel Marceau to perform a benefit show under the Circus Smirkus big top in Middlebury, Vermont. Just as the show began, the lights blew and the tent plunged into total darkness. Happily, the lights came back on and the show went on. “Sometimes calamity is the prelude to an experience with profound grace. A day that had begun fraught with anxiety ended in transcendent triumph. By the finale, Marceau was beaming in a way I had never seen.”’

Marceau had never spoken in costume in front of an audience, but the experience with Circus Smirkus prompted him to do so. “Circus is loved in the whole world. Like music, it explains nothing. Rather it touches your heart, by the risks circus people take. Not only through physical movements, but by the poetry they give with their soul.”

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns at dtreadw575@aol.com.