The World I Landed in...

Hey future reader,

Today is —February 23, 2026—I'm 49, creeping up on the big 5-0, and feeling reflective in the best way. My name is Bill Berry, and I was born on December 15, 1976, in Southern California, smack in the tail end of America's Bicentennial glow. The country was still humming from its 200-year birthday fireworks, but the real buzz that winter was Rocky hitting theaters like a knockout punch and Roots reshaping conversations about family, history, and heritage around dinner tables. Computers were these quirky kits for tinkerers—no one imagined they'd become extensions of our hands. And on my exact birthday, the universe handed me a couple of quirky cosmic footnotes: the FBI formally debunked some alleged Bigfoot hairs as plain deer, and a scientist in Antarctica discovered the first meteorite ever found in Victoria Land, kicking off a treasure hunt for rocks from the Moon and Mars. I like to think those events whispered early hints of wonder into my life—government chasing legends and literal pieces of space landing on Earth, all while I drew my first breath.

My early years unfolded in Fontana, that classic Inland Empire steel-town spot where life felt straightforward: hot summers, kids roaming free until the streetlights came on, the evening news crackling from a boxy TV. No cell phones, no endless scrolling—just real-world play and the occasional arcade glow. Then, when I was 14, my parents divorced, and everything shifted. Mom and I moved first to Redlands, a brief stop that felt like catching our breath, before settling in Escondido. That's where I enrolled at Orange Glen High School—Patriot pride, Glenridge Road campus, the high-school chapter.

By sixteen I'd already landed my first part time job, hustling to build momentum. A few I auditioned with Jonathan Root with our Rootberry juggling show and got on the entertainment team at Legoland California, helping to open that colorful brick kingdom right as the dot-com wave promised the future was limitless.

This got Jonathan Root and I on our way, blending comedy, odd skills, and mustache clubs into routines that earned us gold at the world championships and the People's Choice nod. My first Guinness World Record followed, then a Reno contract at Circus Circus, then Rootberry hit the college campuses and cruise ships starting in 2004. The world was shrinking music into pockets with iPods while I learned entertainment could travel light and fly anywhere.

The Great Recession slammed in like a missed catch, wiping out gigs and forcing tough choices. I lost all of my real estate holdings, a massive blow that felt like my slice of the American Dream had been exactly that, a dream; but I doubled down on resilience, keeping the rhythm alive on whatever stages remained open. That failure taught me more than any trophy ever could, I call it my $750,000 education.

As smartphones surpassed the power of moon-landing computers and social media turned booking into a digital art, I claimed the Extreme Juggling Award at the IJA festival in Texas the same year the Higgs boson was confirmed and Curiosity rover touched Martian ground. Through hope-filled presidencies, landmark equality wins, political turbulence, a pandemic that silenced live stages overnight, and AI suddenly generating ideas quicker than any cascade—I stayed in motion. Live crowds became Zoom streams, then reopened theaters. The medium changed; the magic of connection never did.

At 49, looking back feels like watching a long, intricate routine. Born into a pre-digital era full of analog wonder, in a nation still wrestling with its two-century story, I've witnessed leaps from three TV channels to pocket universes, from doubting home computers to pondering if machines can truly think.

But, I'm still here—bald, mustachioed, a sword-swallowing yogi with thousands of shows across dozens of countries, a couple of tuxedo cats in St. Pete, books in the works, and a heart full of gratitude for every catch and every lesson.

Thanks for reading my rant. If you're peering back from the future, drop a note: What's one "back then" thing from your era that now seems impossibly quaint?

— Bill Berry

(49 today, still dreaming of and chasing the impossible)