John Moore

I had $15 in my pocket. And I was headed to the county fair. In 1974, that was a lot of money. Too much, in my mom’s opinion.

“Why would you take that much to the fair?” my mom asked.

She was right, of course. But, when you’re 12, and you have the proceeds of several one and two dollar mowed yards in your pocket, what else are you going to spend it on?

I didn’t have a girlfriend and I wasn’t even thinking about saving for a car. So why not live it up at the county fair?

“You know all the games are rigged, right?” my father asked me. “The people that run them go from town to town and scam folks.”

Not me, they wouldn’t. I was way too sharp for that.

The games were a draw for sure, but so were the rides. The Ferris wheel, Tilt-o-Whirl, bumper cars, fun house, and of course the sideshow; also called the freak show.

If a large tattooed lady, dog boy, dancing chickens, and a glimpse of the world’s only known mermaid skeleton weren’t worth a quarter each, then what was?

Yes, I was headed to the fair with a pocket full of money.

My buddy Doug was going with me. He also had plenty of cash. We were excited and ready to go.

My mom loaded us up in her 1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited and dropped us off at the gate.

“You boys be back right here at 8 o’clock,” she ordered.

I argued that 8 o’clock wasn’t nearly late enough for us to spend all of our money, but she warned of the consequences of being late.

So, we agreed and headed for the entrance.

In those days, kids got free passes to the fair. Teachers would hand them out in class. It was a great way to secure the entire family. You give the kids free passes and they’ll wart their parents to death until they agree to take them.

My dad worked nights and my mom had to stay home with my sister, so I would be able to go with a buddy and no adults looking over our shoulder.

Times were different then. You could drop off a couple of twelve year old boys by themselves without worrying about them.

Doug and I handed our free passes to a lady at the booth. She looked at us through a rising haze of smoke that made its way from the non-filter cigarette in her mouth, up around her nostrils, and then to her eyes – where it just seemed to stop.

“You boys have a good time,” she said in a voice that indicated this wasn’t her first Lucky Strike.

We meandered around for a bit before deciding to hit the fun house and freak show.

The mirrors in the fun house had a few scratches and bruises. The painted banners for the freak show showed wear as well. Proof of years of packing and unpacking, and rolling and unrolling in many towns across the country.

We plopped down our first quarter to see the large tattooed lady. She was both.

Seeing a large tattooed lady was unique then. Today, you don’t have to pay to see one.

Something you don’t see today is a dog boy. The one we saw at the fair was neither. He appeared to Doug and me to be a small 40-year-old man who badly needed a shave and a haircut.

The dancing chickens it turned out weren’t dancing. I found out later in life that they were standing on an electrified surface. Not good, but I guess it was a better option for the chickens than being selected as a guest of Colonel Sanders.

And the mermaid skeleton? It appeared to be a marriage between a monkey and a large fish.

But a buck for all four exhibits? Absolutely worth it.

We headed from the exhibits to the rides, but the barkers did their jobs well and got us to stop before we got there.

It was the same area of the fair where, years later, a rock band I was in during high school would play for folks walking up and down the midway. But that’s another column.

We played Skee-Ball, but the lanes seemed to be crooked, making it impossible to roll the ball into the holes.

The water guns worked, but getting the stream into the moving clown’s mouth long enough to set off the buzzer just didn’t happen.

We threw baseballs at the standing dolls, but couldn’t knock off three of them. Only two at the most. One ball even seemed to bounce right off the doll.

Doug turned to me said he was out of money. I said I was too.

It was 7:15.

We waited the remaining 45 minutes at the gate. When mom arrived, she asked if we had fun. We said we did.

This year, I received a complimentary gate pass to the fair. I have $15 dollars in my wallet. I’m thinking that might cover parking.

John’s books, Puns for Groan People and Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, are available on his website – TheCountryWriter.com, where you can also send him a message.