Elephant parade
Every year the Ringling Brother and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to town (Boston, specifically--I don't know if they come to your town.) They take the train to some railroad tracks at the edge of MIT's campus and then all the animals and some of the trainers and clowns parade past campus. My friend Karen witnessed that parade this year. When she saw the elephants she cried, a lot, and scared a group of kids who were watching the parade with something less than an adult appreciation of the miseries the circus industry inflicts upon its animals. Of course she starts to tell me this story and I interrupt to shout, "I LOVE watching the elephants!!!" which made the rest of the story (her breakdown) that much more distinct from my own unthinking reaction. The truth is I'd never attend the circus because:
1. Clowns (as if I'd let them near me)
and
2. Depression (I only attended one circus and it filled my twelve-year-old self with such a sense of despair that I vowed never to go again).
So I get Karen's whole crying elephants reaction. But man, I sure bet those children on Mass. Ave were confused.