It took years and some professional help to get over my fear of clowns. As an excited child, while waiting for the Community Night parade to start, I was sitting up on my Grandfather’s shoulders, when a clown approached and smiled and waved at us, making eye contact.  I let out such a piercing cry, that I’m sure Grand Dad’s ears rang for the rest of the afternoon. From that day onward, I kept a safe distance between myself and those brightly dressed, fuzzy haired, big red nosed strangers!  Fast forward to adulthood, and I found myself Cornered. By. A. Clown. I had to interview a professional clown who was a member of Clowns Canada. “Gulp.” I wasn’t at all sure I could speak to her without the return of my old phobia. I was very relieved when I learned that she would be on the telephone. Though I was imagining the device on the other end of the conversation was an over sized purple monstrosity,  almost immediately she soothed my fears with some harmless groaner jokes and before I realized what was happening, I was enjoying our conversation and was wondering what all my fuss was about. She explained that real clowns loved to entertain children, and that the clown who frightened me probably didn’t mean to upset anyone. Ok, I thought. I mean it’s unlikely that I’d be in contact with too many of them over my life time, so I could relax. Besides, a real official clown told me that they were quite friendly, just misunderstood. As you can imagine, with these recent stories surfacing about creepy clowns frightening people, I wish I could remember the name of the friendly clown I spoke with many years ago. Click here for the story of the recent sightings in eastern Canada.