Carnivals, circuses and fairs

We always had a carnival come to town, usually in the middle of the summer, during the early days in Ekalaka. Everyone looked forward to it and enjoyed themselves thoroughly when it came.

Of course there were the carnival rides, I don't believe that we had tilt-a-whirls and things like that in Ekalaka, but we had the Ferris wheel and of course the merry-go-round. My experience with the merry-go-round came very early, at probably age 3. I wanted to go on and Mother put me on, only to have to rescue me when I cried. Later, I became a real pro. I never really liked the Ferris wheel, but rode it anyway.

Once, when I was about 16, our friend, Billy Gergen, came to me with his probably 8-year-old son and asked me to take him on the Ferris wheel because he was afraid to take him himself. I stupidly said that I would take him if he didn't rock, and all he did was rock. He might not have known to rock if l hadn't mentioned it. In later years I got on some of those wilder rides, but I never learned to like them. Ed Gergen is my Facebook friend now.

The carnivals also had sideshows; you could see the world's ugliest man. I once told the man, "You aren't so ugly." I don't know what he thought about that. There were lots of other things, including striptease; they didn't do much, but, if you paid them an extra 50 cents, you could reportedly see more. I never found out. Once, just before going off to college in LA, I was at a carnival in Miles City. I had my whole summer’s wage in my pocket. I got involved with a flim-flam artist, and he took a pretty good chunk of money off of me. You just knew that if you just kept it up you could win it all back and more. Then a nice man who was part of the carnival caught my eye and shook his head to me. I got the message and got out of there with most of my money intact.

I had my first encounter with a circus in Miles City. I was still in high school but we went up to visit my Christiansen cousins and to go to the circus. In those days, if boys showed up at the right time they could help put up the big tent and get a free ticket. We did so, it was a lot of fun. So was the circus itself; with the acts of the big cats, elephants and other things and then, of course, the flying trapeze. I saw several circuses over the years, but I don't think I ever saw one as big, or as good, as the one in Miles City. I don't think that we ever had a circus in Ekalaka.

We didn't have a fair in Ekalaka in those days, but we always went to the Fallon County Fair in Baker. Terribly exciting things happened, like a wardrobe malfunction to one of the ladies on the stage. It really wasn't anything, but we talked about it for days after. Then, of course, there were the vendors in the stands. We thought that it was so funny how one guy said, "peanuts and crackerjacks." We would repeat it over and over with just the right lilt in our voices. I really don't mean to badmouth the Fallon County Fair, it probably was a real good fair. In the intervening years I have gone to many different fairs. I like them a lot, but some are better than others. Mostly they are commercial exhibits and fair food for sale at exorbitant prices; still, we love it.

My daughter Brenda says that we are going to the state fair in Sacramento this year. I hope that we are able to and that I will be able to walk well enough to stay a while and enjoy it. We usually go to some of the local fairs like the Silver Dollar Fair in Chico and the Butte County Fair in Gridley. I guess you can say that I like fairs.