It may be comforting to know that your children will not have to run away to join the circus. That's because there is, and has been for five years, a troupe based permanently in Chicago.
    The Midnight Circus is one of the city's lesser known treasures, a team of a dozen or so young performers whose athleticism and passion would shame most members of our various and floundering sports franchises.

   Founded in 1997 by husband and wife Jeffrey Jenkins and Julie Greenberg, the Midnight Circus is a clever concoction that can charm both adults and kids.
    Jenkins is a former clown with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, and Greenberg's background is in theater and film. What they have created combines circus and theater in joyful fashion for, as Greenberg likes to say, audiences of "all ages between 4 and 80"
    Since 1997, the circus has performed at such venues as Theater on the Lake, the bygone Ivanhoe and the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. But without a permanent home, the group's performers must rehearse wherever they can, which in one case has been a vacant lot at the corner of Grand and Wolcott Avenues.
    That is where Osgood's camera captured the agile and courageous Amanda Crockett, soaring through the city sky. She and other circus members did this almost every day, weather permitting, during the spring, summer and fall.
    It was one of the great city sights, often causing people driving down the street to stop and get out of their cars.
    But some of the neighbors we talked to had become jaded, as if seeing trapeze artists was no more unusual than seeing kids play hopscotch or jump rope.
"They are nice people," said one elderly woman on her way to the grocery store. "And young. You have to be young to do what they do."
    They are doing what they do through Oct. 31 in Daley Plaza as part of the city's "Haunted Hijinx 2002" festivities. It's a grueling schedule: Shows are at 11:30 am., 12:30 pm. and 2 p.m. every day, with additional shows at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
    You really should try to catch a show. No matter where in the area you live, running away to join the circus is so easy when you've got one in your own back yard.