Clown time: At 79 years old, Mary Lou Tanner learns laughs and self-discovery at clown school

This is a story about following a dream as much as having fun. It's about seeing something through as much as trying something new. It's about finding help and support from those you love, about daring to take a risk. It's about a 79-year-old woman who wanted to be a clown.

Mary Lou Tanner has harbored a secret desire to be a clown for the past decade or so — ever since she met a clown face-to-face while serving an LDS mission in Washington, D.C. "I had never been that close to a clown before. She was wonderful," says Tanner, who was thoroughly charmed.

A few days later, Mary Lou saw a car with a sign that said "Clown for Rent" on it, and "I wondered if that was my clown. I saw where the woman parked and went to ask her if she would teach me how to be a clown."

The clown would have liked to, but it turned out she was moving. "But she did show me her clown shoes — and told me they cost $500." Clowning, Mary Lou learned, was not something to be taken lightly.

After she returned home, she took a writing class and wrote about meeting the clown and wanting to have her own pair of red clown shoes. That was when her family first learned of her secret desire.

At Christmas last year, her family decided to do something about it. But why just the shoes, they wondered. Why not help their mother become a clown?

On Christmas morning, Mary Lou opened a little box so light she thought nothing was in it. She was wrong. Inside was a small, red foam ball. Her husband, Earl, squeezed the ball to pop it open and plunked it on Mary Lou's nose. She now had her very own clown nose. Inside the box, too, was a brochure about Priscilla Mooseburger's Clown Arts Camp, which is held each summer in Buffalo, Minn. The family was sending Mary Lou to the camp.

Mary Lou learned that wanting to be a clown and actually taking the steps to be one were two different things, however. "I literally thought I would die. I didn't think I could do it."

Mary Lou has some health conditions that prevent her from doing strenuous activity. After stewing about it for a few days, however, and after her son, David, even offered to take a week off work and go with her if she wanted, she knew she had to go. She realized that not only do opportunities to fulfill a dream not come along very often, but that this was also a dream for her family. "I knew I had to try it." She sent in her acceptance and chose her clown name — Lu-lu.