Thursday, July 22, 2010

Carnival Rides

Every year during the hottest week in July,
a celebration takes place in our little town.

Four city blocks of our brick lined main street is blocked off,
then carnival rides, games and food vendors are moved in.


I look out my window at work where I see the little kids
sitting on courthouse lawn waiting for the rides to start for the day.
I can see mothers pushing strollers up and down the street
looking for bargains at the sidewalk sales of local merchants.
Even though I can never find a bargain I can't live without.
There are is always all kinds of entertainment for all ages,
the local dance school has a performance one evening, street dances,
singing contests, and always a beer garden or two.
The parade is held Saturday morning and lots of tootsie rolls are given away.
My youngest isn't found of the parade clown,
since the year he tried to sit down on her lap
while she watched the parade.
To this day she doesn't care for clowns.
Class reunions, softball tournaments and family reunions
are taking place this week also.

So the town is brimming with people.

There is always a good variety of foods to choose from: barbecue, Greek gyros,
Indian tacos, corn on the cob, pizza by slice and funnel cakes.



My girls were excited to attend this year,
as we out of town last year during that time.

My oldest immediately found her friends she hasn’t seen for several weeks.
Which is the curse of being a country kid and not a city slicker.
You don’t see your school friends on a daily or even a weekly basis.
She just text messages them so they know she is still alive.
She went off with them and reemerged just in time to go home.

So we were left with my youngest and her friend
to ride the carnival rides with.
I snapped a couple of photos with my cell phone,
so the picture quality is what it is.



When I was younger I didn't like to ride "the Sizzler"
It would start out real slow
then turn a corner and jerk you around the other way



My evil older sisters would always have me sit on the outside.

So when we jerked around they would slide into me,

and squish me for the rest of the ride.

Then they would take me on the tilt-a-whirl,

where they would spin it until I would turn green.



3 comments:

Sister One said...

Ahhh, the fond memories. Do you remember getting stuck at the top of the octopus ... or maybe it was Sister Three. I only remember being in front of Grandad's store with one of you two crying and scared. I was more worried he was going to look out the window and see us on the ride. I could just hear him telling me it served me right getting stuck for even going on the ride.

Mardell said...

Somehow the word "puke" comes to my mind.

SisterTwo said...

I remember riding the octupus in front of Grandad Jiggs store. How he hated the carnival rides. He was so sure he would see us get hurt.