One September night when I was 4, my father came home early from the butcher shop where he worked in the Florida Panhandle town of Pensacola. We were, he announced, going to the fair.
By “we” he meant three of us — himself, my older sister and me. My mother would stay home with the baby. By “fair” he meant the traveling one that had roosted on the edge of town and each night was embossing a celestial invitation with a searchlight that streaked across the sky.
On the drive, all the way there, we watched the searchlight, a metronome of flickering vapor white that seemed as extraterrestrial as the moon. When eventually we walked past the light’s source at the fairgrounds, I marveled that such an effect could come from a cooking pan-sized contraption on a rolling stand.
I don’t know why — I’ve been to a thousand fairs and festivals and amusement parks since — but memories of that night have stayed with me, the colors and sounds and especially the uncharacteristically frivolous behavior of my father. He was a young man, and he was having fun.
First, my sister and I rode in separate small boats in a circular tank with water the brilliant blue of mouthwash. The boats had bells with which you could announce your floating progress.
I loved that no-surprise boat ride with its infallible engine and would have been satisfied to stay in the little vessel in its tank for a few more hundred rounds and call it a night. But the ride ended.
At some point my father lifted me onto the back of a real pony, and when he let go, the horse grudgingly began its slow walk in concert with about six others, again in a circle, with some scary-looking man at the controls. I held onto the saddle horn and imagined falling. I remember hating the idea that the pony probably hated me and crying out to my daddy, who came running.
We ate pink cotton candy. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted, spun sugar on a paper stick. It makes my teeth hurt to think of it right now.
My father sat between us on the Ferris wheel, and the view might have been grand. Don’t know. I kept my eyes closed when we reached the top and sat suspended, for a long moment.
The last thing that happened at the fair wouldn’t have happened if Mother had been along. I knew it then, and I know it now. My father made the money, but she made sure the money paid the bills. Already we were out on a discretionary funds limb, just by coming to the fair.
Daddy rolled up his white shirt sleeves and tried winning teddy bears by tossing balls and coins. When that didn’t work, he marched up to a carnival concession and bought two plastic kewpie dolls, show girls with babyish faces all decked out in age-inappropriate feathers and glitter.
I sat in the back seat on the way home, the better to follow the searchlight. I vowed to keep my doll forever.
I have no idea what happened to her. But when the air cools and days grow shorter and acorns hit the metal roof, I imagine a traveling carnival squatting on the edge of town. And I wonder if such a sight has lost its splendor, or become so common that even the young can see the seams.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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