Here's a letter to the folks from 20 years back. Ruth was 9, Hannah was 4 when a carnival came to town...

Dear Folks,

Sorry you couldn't be here to go to the carnival with us. Carla had to work so it was my responsibility as a caring Dad to take the kids by myself. For two nights before our visit, I let them do dishes and housecleaning chores to earn the money they would need to buy stuff. I lectured them on the concept of “work for pay”. They already knew about “pay for cotton candy” but at issue was whose pay...

My office partner, Jon, had said that Wednesday was the last day that the carnival would be in town so even though it was wet and cold, we went. Once we got there, once the commitment was made, we found out that the carnival would stay through what was expected to be a warm, balmy weekend.

Anyway, the first thing the kids pulled me to was the center of attraction. There stood a ride featuring two six-person cockpits at opposite ends of a 100 foot propeller. You can guess how much fun humans can have when they're locked in and the fan is turned on. The teenage operator, all self-inflicted tattoos and cigarettes, demonstrated his professional skills by stopping the fan blade so that one car hung upside down 100 feet in the air. Staring at the girls whose dresses had flipped up (down) over their heads, he was rewarded for his cleverness by the small change that rained down from inverted pockets and purses. With his body twitching as he stumbled around picking up the change, his eyes seemed to rotate in their sockets like the big fan itself. Apparently there was an ongoing power struggle in his body as drugs and alcohol each fought for dominance. I thought it best to let Ruth and Hannah pass on that particular ride.

The “Kiddie Kars” were just OK; baby cars that circle endlessly on steel rails. The working horns made Hannah smile for the first few revolutions, waving, honking, waving...but by pass number 52, Hannah was nodding only slightly less than the ride operator himself.

As we walked around taking in the sights, I realized that the crowd was not local. Apparently we had managed to slip in on a night set aside for a group bussed in from a halfway house work release program. Examples of the down side of a severely limited gene pool were everywhere. Plus, it seemed that many of the crowd had been in serious accidents at some point in their lives and had never received proper medical care. A fault line ran through a face here, a chest there...accentuating mismatched parts like a zipper out of alignment. And much like the professionals who ran the concessions, the people in the crowd apparently all went to one guy's Uncle Bubba to have tattoos scratched into their skin. Bubba's trade is in hogs and cars but he'll do tattoos if you bring the Jack Daniels.

Having not eaten all day, I stopped at a little wooden trailer made to look like an “Old Florida” fish camp shack. They advertized conch and crab fritters. Two large black ladies toured the carnival circuit in this grease van, living for opportunities to demonstrate their undying loyalty to the teachings of Malcolm X. I thought: “Oh good! Here are some large black ladies who know how to cook a great seafood fritter, even if it is a little pricy.” They thought: “Oh good! Here's a milk toast white boy stupid enough to pay $4.00 for a fritter. We'll break out the rotting batter we haul from site to site, throw a scoop into lard hot enough to kill the maggots and serve it up with some rancid tarter sauce!” Fortunately I didn't give the kids any so I was the only one who got the explosive diarrhea. Ruth and Hannah spent their food money on the $2.00 cotton candy... four cents worth of spun sugar. No wonder the vendor was wearing a huge diamond pinkie ring.

By this time Hannah was grabbing her crotch constantly so we headed off to find a porta-potty. One look inside made me tell Hannah that we would leave after the next ride and stop at a gas station for her on the way home. But Ruth just had to peek inside one of those hot, stinking closets from hell. She was wearing sandals with socks that wicked up the black goo seeping out from under the base of the toilets so her feet became encased in carnival souvenirs that she would have preferred not to have to take home.

From there we sloshed over to “The Spider”, our last ride of the night. This beast consisted of eight cars on arms linked to a central hub. The hub spun around as the arms lifted the cars up and down. Then the cars spun and looped in erratic circles independently. My friend Jon said that his little girl loved it. We had to try it he said. “save it for last, it's the best” he said. So all three of us got into one car and braced for launch. Thirty seconds into the ride, Hannah was screaming in true terror. Ruth was swooning, turning green, threatening to faint and vomit at the same time. I was wondering just what had been in that damn fritter anyway, afraid we were going to see it again, very soon. I braced myself waiting for our car to break free in mid spin and fly into the carnival trucks parked nearby. I tucked my head and hoped that the car itself would absorb most of the impact. Several lifetimes later the Spider slowed and stopped. We declined the generous offer to ride a second time at half price.

Walking back to our car, dazed and shaken, I looked up at the top platform of the “Giant Slide”. A toothless, alcoholic, professional “Giant Slide” operator was carefully laying down a burlap bag for someone's 3 year old to ride down on. He took great care to prepare the bag just so. He was very gentle with the child too. But the platform was high and crowded and he was unaware that his large butt was squashing little kids up against the fragile railing behind him. I fumbled for my car keys as one child was pushed backward against the railing, arms extended, flapping and circling in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance 150 feet up on that platform.

I hope the kid made it.

As I said, sorry you couldn't be here to share the fun...or the fritters.

Love,

Hugh