Confession time: I have always been a big fan of carnivals and county fairs.
Having spent most of my life in smaller towns, I appreciated county fairs. When the fair rolled into town, it was like, "Hey! We know your one-carriage town is boring 360 days out of the year. Let us take you to another place."
And I did. I would attend the fairs every night they were in town. I would stand in the shadows, absorbing the rhythms of the barkers and the hucksters, the lights of the midway, and the stench of cotton candy. I was in my element.
When I was in middle school, I dreamed of running away and joining the carnival. I had romantic visions of traveling in a caravan from town to town, eagerly separating the townsfolk from their hard-earned money. I would fantasize about playing mumbly peg and drinking moonshine around the campfire with The Dog Boy and The Missing Link and losing my virginity to The Bearded Lady.
Everyone has dreams. Mine are just lamer than most.
See, while most kids my age were wasting their time building model airplanes and other such nonsense, I would pore over volumes of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!. I was deeply fascinated with the illustrations of the human oddities. It's truly a wonder I didn't try to drive a railroad spike through my skull so I could be "one of them." And I would scour the county fairs of my youth, desperately seeking freaks like those from the pages of my books.
No luck.
On Friday evening, I took Zoey and Zed to their first county fair. It was the second Friday for the fair and there were a lot of intercity football rivalries that evening, so I expected a low turnout. I was correct. Basically, there were three types of people present at the fair on Friday evening:
- Families with small children. We were not alone.
- Emo kids that would've probably gotten their asses kicked if they had shown up at their school's football game.
- Twenty-to-thirtysomething hipsters, alternately mocking and embracing the carnival kitsch.
Zoey even won a toy trumpet! Most of the children in attendance had a toy trumpet. It made a sound like a dying whale. A LOUD dying whale. A weak puff of air into the instrument would produce a 90-decibel blast.
Now imagine several hundred children blowing these horns in unison. It was maddening. But much like the Pied Piper, they did succeed in driving the hipsters from the carnival. So the trumpets weren't entirely a nuisance.
Unfortunately, I didn't spot any freaks (other than my fellow attendees). But there's another fair a few towns away that starts on Friday. And the state fair is next month. Hopefully, I'll finally get to see a freak or two (that isn't a fellow attendee).
More Carnival Fun:
The Old Lion's Teeth, Seems Like A Smile To Me
