When I was part of the youth of this nation I loved the summertime fairs and small town carnivals that were a big part of our scene. In our small town the Art Thomas Shows would usually be engaged for a several- day carnival with the midway rides…the carnival booths with the floating duckies and the bottles that could be hit with baseballs..all for prizes like the cheap cupie-dolls of a past era. There was most likely a heavy sledgehammer spot where the muscled males would try mightily to ring the bell at the top with a sledgehammer blow to the bottom part of the display. I remember sayings on the upward bar like “weakling” if the blow only raised the riser a little bit….there were other sayings along that upward bar too—–”he’s no He-Man!”….”Try again and hit it harder” etc etc. There was usually a freak show tent with tantalizing posters of the “freaks” within….the baby with two heads…..the man with no bones…. the five legged calf—the bearded lady..always a bearded lady. I was too turned off by the weird posters to be tempted inside that tent. If it was good carnival there was a Fun House or a House of Mirrors that made your image about as crazy as it could be made…one would have you all too long in the chest with a little bottom and another mirror would do the opposite….you would have a looooooooong half body and a strange shortened head and chest. I remember the shrieks and laughs coming out of both the Fun House or the House of Mirrors. The Fun House often had moving floors which made walking very difficult.
There had to be a carnival photo booth…the place where three or four friends would cram themselves in at the same time and get 4 pictures in black white and gray…usually lit by the brightest of lights making your faces look white and if you had put on red lipstick for the photo, you had black lips!!!! We always smiled for a couple of shots but always had to make one shot with the worst faces possible….and one with sober faces. There was a lot of shrieking and laughing around the photo booth too. I recall one shot of my girlfriend holding a huge blob of cotton candy in front of her face so only her bugged out eyes were visible. It was the perfect carnival picture!!!!
Eating carnival food was part of the adventure too. Cotton candy…sweet sticky clouds of pink or white on a paper cone; greasy hot dogs with relish and mustard and catsup, “pronto pups” (hot dogs on a stick deep fried in a coating of corn meal batter..the greasier the better! You had had to eat a caramel apple too…and probably some ice cream or a milk shake or a malt…and popcorn!!!! More than one box!!!
All the carnival food often had a devastating effect when the Eater went on a wild ride with a stomach full of carnival food. One year at a late summer carnival my girlfriend and I got the idea that we should ride on the Octopus–one of the violent rides on the midway. But we talked one of the high school teachers into going with us. He had been the high school English teacher and he was a delicate man, thin, frail- looking and with a small thin voice. He was a nice man but his students had done everythihng they could to make him blush because they found out early on that he DID blush…very red and very long when he got flustered or embarrassed and of course high schoolers became masters of making a teacher blush–if that was a weakness.
But this teacher agreed to go with us in an Octopus car and the wild ride began. It was an Octopus with double seats on each arm and there was a young couple in the one next to ours.
We had not circled more than twice when the fellow in the next seat began to vomit violently—he spewed it violently like an erupting volcano—-it was spraying his girlfriend and we noticed flying vomit going by our seat. “DUCK!” my girlfriend yelled as we were in danger of getting vomit sprayed also. All the cotton candy—hot dogs—caramel apples—popcorn the guy had eaten was leaving his ailimentary canal in great spurts of vomit. His girlfriend was coated with the stuff and she was screaming at the Carnies to stop the ride but they were having a smoke and talking and did not notice the vomit-express flying by them on regular turns. The three of us—two teenage girls and the high school teacher…crouched on the floor of the Octopus seat as vomit flew over our heads. The ride finally ended and the poor girlfriend had to almost carry her sick boyfriend off the Octopus ride. What do Carnies do with the vomited-in cars of violent rides?????? I never found out because I had enough of the carnival for that night. I went home as fast as I could after I got off the Octopus.
Fairs had the added attractions of having a Grandstand Show each evening. I remember seeing “Bebe” Shoppe, Miss Minnesota in the late 1940s at a Grandstand Show at the Clay County Fair.
The animal barns were also interesting because it fascinated me that the 4-H-ers would sleep with their heifers, chickens, pigs or rabbits…on bales set up by the pens with sleeping bags or blankets and pillows all ready for the night. I also liked seeing the things the 4-H girls had sewed…I envied their skills at the sewing machine and the nice dresses, suits and coats they made for themselves.
AT the Fairs and Carnivals teenagers could meet kids from other towns…always far more interesting than your hometown kids who seemed pretty run- of- the- mill compared to the teenagers from Barnesville or Pelican Rapids or Glyndon or Hitterdal or Ulen. We were drawn to each other like flies to honey. Many summer romances with a guy or girl from another town began at the Fair or the Carnival.
Sometimes the carnival time would also feature a street dance—another sure- fire draw for the teenagers of our day. It was not easy dancing in your saddle shoes or white bucks on paved asphalt roads but we managed to clump around with each others’ arms wrapped around shoulders and waists.
It would mean a lot to smell the foods of the carnivals and fairs again—to hear the tinny music coming out of the merrry-go round, to see the bright lights of the Octopus, the scary Ferris Wheels and the tilt-a -whirls again….to feel and breathe in the soft summer night air, ripe with carnival aromas and the sounds of the rides and the people’s screams as the Ferris Wheel took them up backwards to the top point where it would stop and rock your seat for a few terrifying moments. You could see all over the midway and the town…you could see out into the surrounding countryside.
There was nothing quite like the summer carnival or the county fair. It brings back a wealth of memories.
