(This little column originally ran Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018 in The Times and The News-Star.)

Friends who know me well — especially friends who wear red wigs and white makeup and friends who walk on tall thin wooden planks underneath their size 287 inseam trousers— know that I am scared of both clowns and people on stilts.

You want me to die instantly? Have a certified letter delivered to me by a clown on stilts. SEEYA!

But I have a subset fear and am embarrassed to admit it. It’s not a fear; it’s more of a discomfort.

Midgets. Very small, but otherwise very regular people. I think it comes from The Lollipop Guild scene in Wizard of Oz. Those three guys sung that song and I trembled in my onesie pajamas. I wish I were joking. I loved the other munchkins. But those guys and the flying monkeys got me.

Stilts people and clowns people are made up. If I am scared of them, I am scared of something based not in reality. I’m good with that. It’s not a real fear in that I know, although they make me scared, these are not real things.

Midgets are. And no one should be scared or uncomfortable around midgets. This is no picnic to admit, but I am. Or was. Until…

Three of us who went to college together haven’t been together as a group for a while. Finally, we found what we thought was the perfect weekend recently because each of us could actually be there this Friday and Saturday and because the pregame promotion at the Arkansas Travelers AA game was…Midget Wrestling!

Admit it: it doesn’t consume your every thought, but when someone says “midget wrestling,” you have almost GOT to pay attention. Just to see what comes next. You’ve got to.

And so did we. We figured this sort of entertainment was not only more than we could have hoped for but also more than we deserved.

Except…in the back of my mind…I knew I was uneasy with the midget situation. Some sort of phobia I had to work through.

Turns out, Dude 1 and Dude 2 with me felt the same. It was never spoken, but I knew. I knew when the event finally happened…

It was a fun Friday evening of eating and a fun Saturday of walking and more eating. Mostly laughing. That’s all well and good. But at 4:30 Saturday afternoon, we were strapped in behind home plate at Dickey-Stephens Park, watching a crew put the finishing touches on the midget wrestling ring and ready for The Big/Little Show.

The contestants came in from right field, down the line, as the P.A. guy explained that this was for the Midget Wrestling Federation World Championship. Big doings.

Bad Boy Brian was the first to show. One-piece tank top nylon. Black. Impressive.

His opponent, also walking in from the right field corner, was Little Kato, brother of Beautiful Bobby Dean, son of the great Lord Littlebrook, a pioneer of midget wrestling. It was actually Beautiful Bobby Bobblehead night at the ballpark!  (This is all true and I have my Beautiful Bobby Bobblehead in my ride in a box in the passenger seat as we speak, 20 days later. I can’t seem to open it…)

I felt dumb as I listened to the PA guy. I know about World War II and literature and a little about history, but obviously, I have a blind spot. My knowledge of midget wrestling is small. I felt ignorant as Bermuda grass in a library.

In all seriousness, midget wrestling and all wrestling is entertainment. This will be offensive to some and I’m sorry but I have been backstage when they are practicing and, trust me, it’s not the reality of advanced calculus at MIT. Or even NASCAR. NASCAR is for reals!

The Little Rock promo was entertaining, but don’t take my word for it. This is the 18^th straight year that midget wrestling has been a “thing” before a Travelers game. And Little Kato, who won a “hard-fought” battle against Bad Boy, thanked the crowd on a live mic, thanked by name the Travelers owner and general manager, and said that if Little Rock ever needed wrestling, “we’ve got the midgets.” And this was not five minutes after Bad Boy Brian had jumped onto him, Batman style, from the ring’s highest ropes. (Please look at he the haunting photograph posted above.) That’s like me or you jumping onto a guy from halfway up a light pole.

So bravo for these guys.

Still, after it was over, me and my two friends didn’t stay for first pitch. For some reason — I’m sure it has to do with something in our childhoods? — we left before first pitch. We exchanged glances, and we left.

I’m looking forward to seeing them again. And never speaking of this again. I feel like a cast member of Deliverance.

Months ago, my spousal unit said I needed three nights at the beach this week. Since most of my problems vanish when I do as she says, I went. When we stopped at an Alabama Burger King — nothing but the best for us! — a midget father was eating with his wife and their precious baby. The next morning in Florida, he and his family were 50 feet from me on the beach, the baby in a blown-up crib under an umbrella, the apple of parents and grandparents’ eyes.

The next day, I was holding approximately 2 tons of beach stuff, struggling with a door, and a man said, “Let me help you sir!” It was my midget friend, father of the child and husband of the wife.

I said “Thank you sir.” I could barely breathe. But he must have heard me. I saw him smile.

“You’re welcome, friend,” he said. Then he took off another way. He’d seen me struggling. He’d gone out of his way to help me. He took off in another direction.

He’s not necessarily in a small group, but he’s a much, much bigger man than I am.

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