All's fair at the fair

The fall of the year, as my mother used to call it, is upon us, and that brings back memories of the old Griffin-Spalding County Fair. I remember being excited when the multi-colored billboards would start to appear around the county, promising the coming of the fair with its rides and games and incredibly unhealthy but delicious food.

I always loved going to the fair. I loved riding (some of) the rides. I loved eating corn dogs and cotton candy. I even loved going to see the livestock exhibit, which smelled to high heaven, but where else was I going to see goats and pigs and enormous piles of cow droppings?

As I look back on it now, though, the fair could be a pretty dangerous place. My parents, once I got old enough, used to drop me off, then come back and pick me up. We don’t do this anymore with our children, since we’re all over-protective, and we’ve seen episodes of Dateline on NBC.

The most dangerous aspect of the fair was, of course, the people who traveled with the carnival. Do you remember when, just before the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein opened the doors to all of the prisons and insane asylums in Baghdad and let the inhabitants roam the streets? Well, that pretty much describes your average collection of carnival workers.

These dregs of society manned the rides and the carnival games. Here’s a fun guessing game – which does the guy running the game have more of, fingers, teeth or times arrested? Ok, it’s not really a fair game. “Times arrested” always wins.

Then there were the rides, which were rusty and creaky and probably hadn’t been inspected since FDR was president. I can remember excitedly climbing on those rides, paying no heed to the fact that they were being held together by Scotch tape and chewing gum.

There was one particularly insidious ride called the “Skydiver.” On this contraption, you were strapped into a metal cage which was attached to a big wheel, similar to a Ferris wheel. And as you went around in circles, the cage would roll over. You could control how much it rolled, if it all, with a steering wheel inside the cage of death. Why this appealed to anyone, I never knew.

I would never ride it as a kid, always making the excuse “that looks lame” or “it doesn’t go fast enough.” The truth was, the mere sight of it scared me to death. Who were these crazy people climbing on that thing and letting the winner of a Charles Manson look-alike contest pull a lever that controlled their fate?

So one year, when I was a little older and had a fancy job at the Food Giant grocery store and a 1968 Mustang with a white vinyl top and a little spending money in my pockets, I took a young lady to the fair. That’s a romantic scenario you see in a lot of movies, right? Young lovers, strolling down the midway hand in hand, the girl eating some cotton candy while clutching a stuffed unicorn the boy won for her at a carnival game; the boy, strutting on the sawdust, pulling his girl close and hoping to steal a kiss on the merry-go-round.

Well, I take this crazy chick to the fair, and the first thing she does is point to the Skydiver and say, “I want to ride that!” I pretended to not hear her, and instead steered her to the carnival games. “Let me win you a stuffed animal,” I said. She said OK, but I saw her cast one more glance filled with desire at the freaking Skydiver, and I knew I was in trouble.

The first game we went to required me to knock over some bottles with a softball. This, I thought, would be easy. I was a pretty fair country ball player and had a good arm. What I didn’t know was that the parolee running the game had filled the bottles with something like iron or kryptonite, and it would have taken a hydrogen bomb to knock one down.

Then we went to basketball shooting game. I was a good shot back in those days, but all three of my attempts clanked off the rim which, I’m guessing, was actually smaller in circumference than the basketball. I was running out of money and pride, and not impressing my date.

Finally, I found a game where you tossed softballs into a basket. This seemed pretty easy, so I stepped up and did it on the first try, and beamed at my date, and the chain gang escapee handed me, I’m not kidding, a small piece of shag carpet. Wait a minute, I said, pointing to colorful stuff elephants and giraffes, what about those? Oh, to win that you have to throw it in one of those, he said, pointing to a basket about as big around as a doughnut. I knew I had been defeated.

“Come on,” I said to my date, once I found her again, “let me buy you a corn dog or some cotton candy.”

“That stuff is gross,” she said. “Let’s go ride something.”

“OK,” I sighed, and before I could point her toward the Tilt-o-Whirl, she grabbed my hand and began sprinting toward the Skydiver. My fate was sealed. The only possible chance I had at even getting a peck on the cheek was to climb aboard that death machine and test my fate.

We got on the thing, and I tried to lean in close to her, but this maniac was already turning the steering wheel, trying to get us upside down before the ride even started. I took my arm from around and began to fight for control. I saw that I was losing this battle, and I decided right then and there that no kiss was worth this, and I tried to open the door and get out, but Cool Hand Luke hit the start button, and away we went.

Around and around we went, with Sybil beside me trying to make the cage spin, and me holding on for dear life. I may as well have not even been on the ride – she was in love with the thrill, and not me. After about 10 times around, we get to the top of the ride – and it stops. Dead. Apparently, there was a mechanical issue with the ride.

I look down, and the guy’s walking around with a screwdriver, trying to figure out how to get the ride going again. I was thinking of jumping out, but my date keep spinning the cage, and finally I told her, “If you do that one more time, I’m going to throw up on you.” I guess the greenish tint to my face convinced her that I was serious, so she stopped her foolishness, and sulked as I held the steering wheel steady, keeping us upright until the ride got going.

Finally, it started up again, and when I reached solid ground I bolted out of the door and began wobbling back up the midway, ready to go home. My date was walking behind me when she saw a group of her friends, and she said, “If you’re not feeling well, I’ll just hang out with my friends and have one of them take me home and you can leave.”

I nodded my head, mumbled something and left her in the sawdust. I glanced over my shoulder and all I saw was her blonde hair bouncing as she ran back toward the Skydiver, and we didn’t go on any more dates.
Oh, and I kept the piece of shag carpet.