Cheap Thrills

The pandemic has cancelled many county fairs, so let me share my trip to the fair the summer before I entered junior high in 1964.

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The last thrill before school starts is the County Fair. My mom will walk the dusty fairgrounds with my brother, Bruce, and his best friend, Eric Snell, because they’re only going into fourth grade. My best friend, Linda, and I are going into sixth, and Laura, her older sister, into seventh, so we get to go off on our own.

Before we part, my mom says, “Remember, meet me at the front gate when it gets dark.”

Linda, Laura and I wave and charge towards the Tilt-a-Whirl.

A short, muscly man with black, greasy fingertips takes our tickets.  Laura jumps into the middle of one of the red saucers, so Linda and I have to sit on either side of her.  When all the seats are taken, Mr. Muscles, chains the entrance shut, and pulls a lever. We spin, round and round, tilting up and down, faster and faster until our heads are plastered against the high back upholstered in blue vinyl. The man lifts his hand from the lever and lights a cigarette. Stale smoke mingles with the aroma of sticky, sweet candy apples, cotton candy, and fried dough, and I feel like I might barf, but when the saucer swivels to a stop, we rush down the rickety steps to our next thrill.

We hurry through the crowd of pokey parents holding hands with little girls in sun suits and little boys in cowboy shirts to get to the Scrambler before all the cars are loaded.  We hand our tickets to a skinny guy with a sailor tattoo on his forearm. This time Linda beats Laura to the middle seat.  Linda and I smile at our operator as the car spins and jerks, hoping he’ll lengthen our ride.  But he stares into space as if he’s bored.  Who could ever be bored running a carnival ride?

We dip, tip, swing, and swirl until we’re ready for the game tents on the outside of the midway.

A man in rainbow striped pants and a yellow T-shirt tosses a ring over one of the million milk bottles filling his tent floor. “Look how easy that was. Step right up and win one of these fabulous prizes.”

Giant rabbits, over-sized dolls, and huge bears hang from the ceiling of his stall, but stuffed toys are for babies. My eye spots a blue spangled jackknife dangling among the trinkets hung from the edge of the tent. I pull Linda’s sleeve to stop. All I have to do is get one ring over one bottle, and the knife is mine. I hand the man a ticket, and he hands me five plastic rings. First, second, third, fourth, fifth all bounce off.

“Here, let me help you.”  The man in the yellow shirt strides over. “Watch how it’s done.” He slowly tosses a ring, and it clinks squarely on the bottle’s neck.  “Want to try again?”

I focus on my target and hand him another ticket.  How hard can this be? I was in the Olympic Club all five years at Greenwood Elementary. My fifth throw I get a leaner.

The man removes my ring.  “Oh, so close.”  I hand him another ticket.  He hands me five more rings. Still no glittering knife. 

Linda tugs me towards the sound of the shooting gallery. A woman dressed like Annie Oakley hands each of us a rifle. We line up in a crush of junior marksmen. A row of yellow ducks travels along a track at the back of the tent.  Puff, pop, ping—one ducky down.  Annie Oakley hands the boy next to me an orange balloon. Before my rifle is out of breath, I hit a duck, and Annie hands me a blue balloon. Wow! But then Laura hits a duck too, and the novelty is gone. 

A man in a red tuxedo, a top hat, and a black mustache calls from the next tent painted with life-size illustration of a fat lady, a midget, a two-headed Holstein calf, and Siamese twins, “Come see the wonders of the world.”

We hand the man our tickets, and he lifts the flap revealing a wooden walkway next to a long table covered with one large jar and several pictures placed on elaborate easels. I stoop to look inside the jar, labeled Two Headed Calf, Elmira, NY.  It contains a lump of pickled, gray flesh shaped like two erasers sticking out of the top of a shrimp. What a jip. The adjacent easel displays a photo of two Asian men wearing a suit joined at the chest. Their label reads, Chang and Eng Bunker born 1811 Meklong, Siam. This looks real, but creepy and sad. The next easel shows a small man in a military uniform standing on a table next to a regular-size guy. The label says General Tom Thumb was only three feet four inches tall.  The man beside him was P.T. Barnum of circus fame.

At the end of the table an arrow points around the corner.  We follow Laura into a back section where a fat lady in red bloomers, a sleeveless blouse, and a frilly bonnet takes up an entire Victorian sofa like my grandmother’s.  Really, she’s no fatter than Mrs. Snell, Eric’s mom, who never comes out of her house at the end of our street. I try not to stare at the woman’s doughy arms, or her elephant legs that come to a point in tiny ballet slippers. She fans herself as we exit the stifling canvas and waves good-bye. I wave back, suddenly glad that Chang and Eng and General Tom Thumb were only pictures. 

The loud speaker announces the draft horse draw. Linda, Laura and I race to the bleachers at the end of the midway guided by the smell of hay and manure. An emcee in a box atop the stands, introduces a team of humongous black horses he calls Percherons. They prance into sight in fancy harness barely controlled by two men on either side holding leather straps. A third holds the reins and backs the pair up to a metal sled loaded with concrete weights. At the touch of the hitch to the sled, the enormous pair lurch forward, their great hind quarters digging at the dirt until a whistle signals they’ve pulled their load across the mark. They compete with teams of Belgians with braided manes, and Clydesdales with shaggy fetlocks, pulling ever increasing burdens until they’re covered in frothy streams of sweat.

When stadium lights click on, flooding the arena, I nudge Linda, “Hey, it’s getting dark. We’ve got to meet my mom at the gate.” 

On our way back, we pass through 4H sheds of blue-ribbon lambs, grunting piglets, pygmy goats, ornamental chickens, Holstein calves,with only one head, giant pumpkins, and prize-winning pickles. 

We pause in the Quonset Hut of Tomorrow to watch a radar range cook a hot dog in seconds.    

Passing the Ferris wheel, Linda points. “One last ride?”

We pile into a car and sway as other cars finish loading. Then up we go to the tippity top above the twinkling lights, the din of carnival tunes, and the smell of fried sausage and peppers. 

From on high, I spy my mom corralling Bruce and Eric at the gate. She appears no bigger than the dolls hanging above the ring toss. The giant wheel turns, taking me down to the level of excited children lined up for the next ride. In three days, I will officially cross the border from elementary school to junior high. I guess a fair is about pushing boundaries, flying higher, zooming faster, the biggest hog, the smallest dog. Beyond normal limits—at once dazzling and terrifying. 

We rise above the Quonset Hut of Tomorrow.  If I could really see into the future, I would know that no one will ever call the contraption that cooks a hot dog in seconds a radar range. The miraculous microwave will mainly nuke leftovers. I would know that within the year, Mrs.  Snell, will be skinny enough to finally get off her couch and exit her suburban tent to die of cancer.

But at that moment, teetering on the cusp of adolescence, crisp autumn air cool on my cheek, I was content to leave the freaky fair, squeeze back into our black Ford station wagon, and find my old cinnamon bear, Fritz, and my ordinary green Girl Scout knife waiting for me at home.