Judy and Gary Kopff wear their hearts on their sleeves and large, upturned paddle shoes on their feet. On occasion, they sport red foam-rubber balls on their noses and balloon animals atop their heads.
The couple, each of whom has worked at exacting management jobs, moonlight as amateur clowns. They do this for fun and charity, wondering just how other people use their free time on weekends.
“We don’t play golf. We don’t drink. I don’t watch football games, and I have my own gym that I built outside,” Mr. Kopff says. “It’s time available, and in retirement, time expands.”
Because they are Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas at home, they plan for the fifth year to spend Christmas Day in the wards at Walter Reed Army Medical Center helping on that special day to cheer soldiers recovering from the wounds of war.
The two don’t limit themselves to performing. In recent months, they organized a collection of several thousand videotapes, DVDs, CDs and books on tape - along with several dozen DVD and VHS players and boomboxes - for use by recovering troops and their families at the Walter Reed and Veterans Affairs medical centers.
Mrs. Kopff, 62, who retired over the summer from the Pentagon, is the more experienced self-taught entertainer, but these days, the couple usually go together on a regular gig with the Starlight Children’s Foundation Mid-Atlantic, which sponsors parties for hospitalized children in the region. Mr. Kopff, 63, a self-employed former McKinsey & Co. official, includes on his lengthy resume a photograph of himself in clown costume above a photograph of Mount Everest - as mountain climbing and clowning are two of his favorite leisure activities.
Mrs. Kopff went from helping manage policy regarding contractors hired for Iraq and Afghanistan to becoming a volunteer clown nearly full time. Earlier this month, she was asked to be keynote speaker at a National Honor Society induction ceremony at the District’s School Without Walls, where she talked about the importance of community service while wearing her clown shoes and a balloon hat.
She has a history of social engagement. In 2004, while visiting Vietnam with a friend, she took thousands of balloons to entertain at orphanages and schools for the blind.
“I grew up in a community-service-oriented family in Rhode Island,” she notes by way of explanation.
Clown visits to pediatric wards aren’t unusual. What may be unusual is to find a couple from the Kopffs’ professional backgrounds becoming what they call “giggle therapists.” “We’re both silly,” Mrs. Kopff concedes. They say they can tell when and how each child is likely to respond to their antics.
“One in ten at two years of age will cry; nine out of ten will giggle,” Mr. Kopff states authoritatively.
“If a little child is scared, I’ll say ’I’m just a regular person,’” Mrs. Kopff adds.
To keep from scaring children, they don’t wear face makeup, but Mrs. Kopff admits that also is because makeup can soil a wardrobe, and their costume supply is limited.
They are especially proud of their red, white and blue clown shoes.
“You should see us walking up and down steps,” Mrs. Kopff says, laughing at the reactions they get in public places.
She bought her pair at an antiques show in New York 10 years ago. Then, at a college reunion last year, a former investment banker who went to Yale University with Mr. Kopff gave him a $10,000 check to spend on amenities. Some of it went to purchase a custom-made pair of shoes for him, and some they intend to use for attendance at a weeklong clown school in Minnesota.
How probable is it that such typically “left-brain” people also can be accomplished comedians? Mrs. Kopff scoffs at a lighthearted suggestion that they might have split personalities, but she does agree that such a hobby can be seen as compensation for an involuntarily childless state in a 38-year marriage.
Their personalities spill over spontaneously in whirlwind conversations, which can proceed at a rat-a-tat pace. One talks, and the other interrupts eagerly to add a detail or qualify a point of fact or opinion. It’s joie de vivre on steroids.
“I was never a boring person in a meeting,” Mrs. Kopff says.
One of her hobbies for the past 35 years has been collecting jokes and cartoons - “I don’t tell jokes well, but I collect them” - and sorting them into categories.
The Kopffs’ plainly have energy to burn, admirable civic concern and an engaging bit of eccentricity. Their home in the District’s Cleveland Park neighborhood is filled with furnishings that are as unusual as they are festive. Stuffed animals and animal lore abound: outsize giraffes and elephants in the sitting room, a family of chimpanzees and gorillas in the dining room, tchotchkes and collectibles everywhere, plus three very alive cats.
“We like animals,” they say matter-of-factly.
Their Walter Reed visits came about somewhat serendipitously, with Mrs. Kopff meeting Joyce Rumsfeld, wife of then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, at a holiday party and telling her about her volunteer activities with her husband. Mrs. Rumsfeld gave her a contact to gain entrance to the medical center, and not long after, the Kopffs found themselves inside doing their shtick.
They generally decline when asked to entertain at private parties but have done so on occasion if sponsors agree to donate a fee to a worthy cause.
“There is a way we could leverage this, but at the moment, our spirit is for direct contact only, one on one,” Mr. Kopff says. “Our goal is to bring a smile to their faces and their hearts. The reality of it is there is an enormous need for mirth in the world. Few people care that we aren’t professionals. It’s a gift for us. We are the ones who are winning.”
“People don’t care how good we are,” Mrs. Kopff says. “They just know our intent is to make them smile.”
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