Stopping in Bethel - with its happy collection of bookstores, a record
store and coffee shops - we spotted a statue of P.T. Barnum. We wondered what he was doing in these parts, not knowing he was born in the town in 1810.

The inscription under the statue explained, in Barnum's words, his early start:

"I was born and reared in an atmosphere of merriment. My natural bias
was developed and strengthened by the associations in my youth;
and I feel myself entitled to record the sayings and doings of 
the wags and eccentricities of Bethel because they partly explain
the causes which have made me what I am."

I love any sentence that has the words "wags and eccentricities" in
it and, even more, the notion of being "born and reared in an
atmosphere of merriment." 

No wonder he would go on to live one of the more colorful lives in American history, one even a fiction writer might have trouble conjuring up. A man invariably described as "an American showman," "a flim-flam man," "the Shakespeare of marketing,"   "an entertainer," "a politician," "a philanthropist,"  "a scam artist" and a founder of and "King of the circus" - sometimes all in one breath.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/nyregion/for-ringling-brothers-a-homecoming-at-barclays-center.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0