A boy lives with his mother, father, and sister in a small Pennsylvania town in the 1940s. The father had began his career in a brick yard at the age of twelve, eventually working his way up to a comfortable middle-class livelihood. In order to do this, he had to become serious and give up on his dream of joining the circus. The boy's mother tells him that when she and his father were still dating, the father would put on acrobatics shows at parties and at small community events. Everyone was impressed by his skill and thought he'd be a great circus star. As the years went by, the father continued practicing the trapeze in their yard, despite the fact that he was getting older. In the summers, he took his son to go see the circus when it came to town, always waking up extra early so they could walk over and see the Big Top being set up and the circus people unloading. The father had been making the trip since he was a little boy. When his son was fifteen, however, he felt that he was too old to go to the circus, being more interested in pursuing a girl he liked. He complained that it was the same thing every year. That year and they years following, his father made the trip alone. By the time the boy's sister was old enough to have kids of her own, the father had gotten a prominent position in the company he worked for, and he decided that it was too unprofessional to be trapezing on the front lawn. With two little grandchildren, he still liked to entertain them, walking on his hands and standing on his head around the house. He still talks about what his life might have been like if he had been in the circus. But one summer, in a weekly letter from his mother, the son learns that his father decided not to go to the circus, saying that it would just be the same old thing.