Sunday Morning With Octavie La Tour: The Courage of Circus to Soar ... The Courage of Ivo to Continue ...

In the spirit of honoring Ivo Silva, Jr., of the Flying Caceres, who completed a quad into the deft hands of catcher Danidel Simard, with Ringling-Barnum's new Funundrum during its first week in Tampa, I would like to quote from words written over one hundred years ago by a 20-year-old French girl, Octavie La Tour, who drove Barnum & Bailey's somersaulting auto, thrilling crowds with what one newspaper reporter called "automobile flights." In 1905, the daring "chauffeuse" La Tour contributed the following to the New York World . Her eloquent words, I believe, are a tribute to all great rings stars everywhere who, like Ivo, inspire us with the majesty and power of their super-human feats:

"Human daring has but one limit: human imagination. Human courage dares all, and there is no task, no feat, no exploit of bravado you can suggest that it will not venture ... Demand what feat you will that requires physical skill and physical courage, and we in the circus will attempt it. Nay, we will perform it successfully ... get your mind fermenting; give your imagination free play; and invent the real limit of human daring. Show us how to fly to the moon; direct the way to Mars; point the signboards down the roads of human daring. And I for one will go."