The question is put to Andy Beyer the moment he comes home from work.

"Andy, dear," his wife, Margaret, says. "Are you planning to take your face off?"

Margaret Beyer doesn't mean to pry, but when you're married to a man who wears an orange wig and greasepaint for a living, you can't help but wonder:

Will he take off his makeup before dinner?

Or dine as Bumbo the Clown?

Beyer, of Santa Ana, has been Bumbo for nearly half a century. At 77, he is Orange County's oldest professional clown. He has performed for three generations of Orange Countians--at birthday parties, picnics, baby showers, even his own dinner table.

He shows little sign of slowing down.

OK, so he walks with the help of artificial knees. So rival clowns call his act outdated. Phooey, Beyer says. He'll be clowning around until he's at least 100.

"I have to," Beyer quips. "The mortgage on our house won't be paid off till then."

Beyer smiles. It's obvious his motivation runs deeper than dollars and cents. You can see it in his eyes, hear it in his owl-hoot laugh. This silver-haired granddad loves to make others happy. The cynic in you doesn't stand a chance.

Beyer drives a polka-dotted truck, a '68 Chevy fitted with a small, old-fashioned merry-go-round. The carousel, powered by the truck's engine, features a dozen miniature wooden horses. Beyer brings the carousel to all his performances. He refers to each horse by name.

On weekends, Beyer (a.k.a. "Bumbo the Clown and His 12-Horse Merry-Go-Round") performs a couple of parties a day, at $80 to $90 a pop. On weekdays, his mission is entirely different.

Beyer leaves his house around 3 p.m. He drives the polka-dotted truck into low-income neighborhoods, offering carousel rides for a quarter. The quarters don't add up to much, but that's OK, Beyer says.

He gave up the dream of owning a Lincoln Continental a long time ago.

*

The suit-and-tie world beckoned when Beyer left the Marine Corps in 1946. He and Margaret were two years married, with a baby on the way. Beyer got a job in Philadelphia selling Hoover vacuum cleaners and was offered a similar position in Santa Barbara. They couldn't wait to be Californians.

Then Beyer spotted the ad in Variety magazine: a portable merry-go-round for sale in Boston for $1,200. It was an enormous sum, but the Beyers were intrigued.