I can't forget my great-uncle Floyd, who was the most unsuccessful knife thrower in the history of the American circus. An emigré from Sweden near the Arctic Circle, Floyd had an uncommon flash and sense of showmanship but ended up wounding a total of eleven women, none fatally, before the Barnum and Bailey authorities convinced him to retire. Curiously, despite his public record, Floyd had no problem finding women to stand there and take their chances. A cousin told me that when Floyd died at age eighty-eight in Wisconsin on May 18, 1957, he said on this deathbed, "I could have been a famous knife thrower, but I just couldn't throw knives."
Jim Harrison, "A Really Big Lunch"
