Carnival Days~ Part One of Six

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Several members have seemed interested in hearing about my adventures with the carnival when I've mentioned it. So, I decided to write it all out as much as I recall. My girlfriend from highschool got me interested in the carnival. We were both about twenty then and it was the early 70's. She was going to work there to make some extra money in the summer. It sounded fun so I joined her. She got a job right away but I ended up running for food for the other carnival folk and getting tips the first couple of days. I enjoyed the people, the sounds, the rides, the smells. It was all invigorating and what an adventure that first year was. I met a fellow and he and I wrote to one another for quite a while. We didn't have time to date so it was just mostly small talk and flirting. He lived in the Dakotas and we never met other than at the fair. Just wrote for a couple of years. The next summer I was even more excited. As soon as the car came within viewing distance of the fairgrounds my stomach would do a flip flop as if I had seen a long lost bough. I worked in the nickel pitch again. It was fun. Just a bunch of dishes where the object was to land nickels in a certain amount of dishes. This year I wanted to travel with them. I called my mom the last night as we were packing to leave. She told me she was excited for me. That she wished she had done something like this when she was young. She had never traveled. The only time I recall her leaving Boise was when she went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to work for the Forest Service and when we lived in Pocatello for seven years when she remarried. Our first fair was in Idaho Falls. The job of the carnies was to keep the drivers of the big trucks awake in between fair lots. The quicker we made it to the next stop, the quicker we could set up the rides and joints the better. Sleep was at the bottom of the to do list. I remember that lot was like one big mud bog. It was mid September and getting rainy and cold. That year there had been alot of rain so everything turns to mud. I had worn a pair of 'waffle stompers' which were hiking boots. I stepped out into the midway at one point and one boot went down what seemed like about a foot. I lost the boot and there was no way I was going after it. I had met a girl in Boise that traveled with the carnival. She was older and had the job of babysitting the owner's toddler. She and I shared a hotel room and she had other shoes. I was able to borrow a pair until I got paid and could get me some others.