Are you a has been or a never was?

I first met Bo Jackson at a Jr. C Patriots game. It was the kind of introduction that sticks with you.
Bo was wearing a cowboy hat big enough to plant corn on, and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. Sitting beside Ken Iles, who was ever the soft spoken gentleman, Bo would holler and bellow and invite one and all to “Get your fifty-fifty tickets!” And they did.
Bo Jackson sold a lot of fifty-fifty tickets. After basically growing up in the carnival, he had the knack. He certainly knew the ways of the carny.
In his early days, Bo began as a carnival barker, drawing people in to watch Boxcar Myrtle, a mind reader and reigning Queen of the Hobos. Bo never mentioned if Myrtle ever drew him in, and I never asked.
He toured for a while with Tommy Scott’s Last Real Old Time Medicine Show, and learned the tricks of the fire eater’s trade from an old pro who always took out his false teeth while performing. The story was, he once left his teeth in for a show, and melted them.
Bo had a million stories and, like any carny worth his candy apples, had a way of making you believe every word of it was the truth.
His first real character was Hillbilly Sam, a country bumpkin with a long fake beard made of real French horse hair. Bo learned to spin plates, and later developed a dance routine as loco El Diablo, the King of Fire.
Bo even tried a pole sitting act for a while, where he perched atop a 25’ flagpole to perform his routine. When he accidentally fell off one night, the crowd loved it so much the boss told him he had to do it again the next night. So, he did. He told me the key to making money is to give the people what they want.
Easily Bo Jackson’s most enduring character was BoJo the Clown, an affable sad-faced tramp. He rode around in a 1955 polka dot Chevy, and worked for McDonalds before they even thought of creating Ronald.
Over the years, I learned a lot from Bo, such as how to always keep a lit cigarette in a dunk tank. As long as you’re puffing smoke, people will go crazy trying to dunk you.
He told me it’s better to be a has been than a never was, and the key to success in life is “you gotta have the gotta wanna.” Then he told me he was once asked to play Tarzan. I don’t know if he could swing on a vine or even swim, but you never truly knew with Bo.
I prefer to believe that all of Bo’s tales were true, or mostly true; like when he described the bearded lady as mostly fat, and anything but a lady. Bo Jackson is gone now, and it’s left me wishing I had heard more of those stories of his. He lived an interesting life. You just gotta have the gotta wanna, I suppose.