Carnies

No one I know under the age of 75 listens to local A/M radio... except Birch. He suffers through Karen Carpenter and the Bee Gees in order to hear local news and the police blotter. On rare occasion when we are together in his car, I myself have been transported back in time. A few rounds of Rainy Days and Mondays and I'm straight back in the seventies with my Marcia Brady hair. Truthfully I think this started when he was hoping to catch an airing of a commercial he'd taped for his chiropractor. It evolved from there. And while I'm perplexed by this side of him, just once it paid off for us all.

All he had to do was be a certain number caller in order to win tickets to the fair. I truly think he could have gone to lunch before calling in (how big an audience can they possibly have? And demographics say most of their listeners don't hear very well). He scored.

I've always been a little leery of small town fairs. "Fair" is really a misleading term here. "Carnival in a field" is more accurate. But, free is one of my very favorite words. After arriving, we learned that we not only received free admission, but 4 free unlimited ride bracelets. Seeing as how each ride for each person was about $2.00, this was quite a treasure.





And ride we did. Holt and Mouser sampled all the kiddie rides, several times each. We steered bumper cars. We giddy-uped carousel horses. But then Mouse pointed to the sky and said, "When are we gonna ride that?" She had her heart set on the ferris wheel. I hesitated. What would happen when we swung to the highest point and she panicked? What then? But she assured me, on this her heart was set.


So we got on, the two of us. No one else was up to the challenge. The operator immediately pulled the lever and swooped us to the very top. We stopped. The bucket seat swung straight up, straight back, and stopped. We could see for miles. And Mouse? She gasped- but with delight, not fear. She was in love with the wheel.

After we had not perished at the end of our third ride, Holt climbed aboard. We rode again and again, around and around. And as closing hour approached, our family was one of the few that remained. Our last ride on the wheel we rode solo, the only seat filled. It was the last ride of the night and the operator was generous. Never has a carnival ride lasted that long. I pointed to where our house was, across a couple of miles in the darkness. I knew that every time after when I passed that grass field, I would remember the wonder of my children as the world dropped away and the ground came rushing up, the screams of the riders and the sweet laughter beside me.