The Groom Wore Clown Shoes: A Patch Tale of Love and Greasepaint, Part 1 of 2

The bride wore white. The groom wore clown shoes.

They were the formal clown shoes, though. The ones with the spats. It was, after all, his wedding day.

The Corvettes, a barbershop quartet of members of The Singing Men of Note, hummed "Sentimental Journey" over the small crowd's clackers, maracas and whistles as bride and groom exchanged vows in the Vogt Visual Arts Center gazebo that evening of Sept. 10, 2010.

It's a tale you've heard a thousand times: Clown meets clown, clown loses clown, clown gets clown back because one of the clowns worked as a window serviceperson. Cliché, almost. But for the newly minted Kurt and Julie Dekker, it's the story of their lives.

It's the story of Cazoo and Loopy.

Window to the Past

Kurt Dekker, 50, met Julie Wegner, 48, when she moved to his neighborhood in Evergreen Park.

He was 8. She was 6. They grew up four houses down from each other.

The pair dated for a year in their early teens, but lost touch when Kurt graduated in 1978.

"I didn't know he was alive," Julie said. "Last thing I knew, he was living in Colorado."

Sixteen years passed. Then in 1994, Julie moved to Tinley Park, to a home with windows that cranked out.

And, when anyone cranked the windows out, the crank arm would fall off. And, except for the beard, the window repairman the company sent looked awful familiar.

"He never did fix my windows," Julie said. "We talked the whole time."

There was a lot to talk about. Both had gotten married and started families. Both had moved to new communities. And, somehow during those missing years, Julie's teenage sweetheart had become a clown.

"I hate clowns"

While Kurt was in Colorado, he and his brother Keith decided to take a class on the art of mime.

"When my brother and I did that the first time, we painted our face with watercolor and within 10 minutes we were sweating and it was running down our faces," Kurt said. "We were kind of scary."

In 1986, back living in Chicago, Kurt learned of a clown class. With the watercolor incident fresh in his mind, he signed up to strike a blow for mimekind.

"'I hate clowns,'" Kurt said, recalling his thoughts at the time. "'I'm not going to be a clown. But I'm going to steal their make-up tips.'"

The day of the first class, the world lost a mime. Kurt switched teams.

Since then, Kurt has toured the Midwest with Circus Vargas, worked at the now-defunct Shireland theme park and performed at Bulls games, for the Jerry Lewis Telethon, in the South Side Irish Parade and with more Chicago-area clown groups, events and parades than you can shake a giant shoe at.

Over the years, he has developed the full clown repertoire.

"I'm a juggler, unicyclist, fire-eater," he starts.

"Magician," his wife chips in.

"Magician."

"Mime."

"Mime, bull-whip and just general clowning around," Kurt finishes.

For Julie, Kurt isn't Kurt unless he's Cazoo.

"That's such an essential part of him as a person," she said.

But it would be years before Kurt/Cazoo helped turn Julie into Loopy.

COMING TOMORROW: Cazoo and Loopy's story continues, telling why Kurt's immune system gets a birthday party, whose phone call led to a snap engagement and how Kurt talked his girlfriend into dressing like a clown.

Read part two here