Most of the advertised were simply things preserved in jars. Kinda gross. I do remember the Bearded Lady, she was real...Real Fat, ugly AND bearded. (bless her heart at least she had a job)
Lobster Boy was just a freak. Another fat stumpy guy behind a glass case with hands that were an obvious severe deformity . They probably made him help pick up the cow dung in the exhibition hall with his claws after we all left...I can't see them treating him like a king.
Then there were the "peep" shows. The tent was decorated with caricatures of women in veils and belly dancing outfits. I never went in those, but bet my older brother did!
It was the one day a year that Diddy and I were besties. We didn't ride anything, we didn't spend money but explored each agricultural and animal exhibit and simply people watched . The smell of funnel cakes, horse, pig and cow poop all mixed together was mesmerizing to me as a kid!
To grow up in the sixties and seventies was amazing. We never locked our front door, slept with all the windows open, even on the ground floor and rarely locked the screen doors unless we were trying to keep the dog from getting out.
We didn't have air conditioning in our house, we had an attic fan. We had one phone in our house, a black rotary dial phone on the kitchen wall. We had one television...big as a love seat. It always had aluminum foil wrapped around it's antennae. (which never seemed to help)
Our first video game was by Atari. "Pong." It was on the black and white set but we were all fascinated by the virtual ping pong game.
We all carried transistor radios around and if home ran to the rotary dial kitchen phone to call in a request or try and win a contest.
We slept like babies even in the summer heat. I remember going to bed listening to WQXI (we called it Quixie) on the screened in back porch and waiting to hear my request after getting home from the roller rink ,where no one asked me to couple skate. I always wanted some pimple faced boy in bell bottom pants and a wide collared paisley shirt to saunter up next to me on his Roller King skates and ask me to couple skate with him to "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks.
Never happened.
But I was still a happy kid.
Didn't have my first french kiss til I was over fifteen and it was, at the least awkward. I went to a dance at the school with him. Does it tell you anything that his nickname was "Chin?" His older brother who drove us was nicknamed "Big Chin" and this was WAY before Jay Leno! He was a good guy but it didn't help he broke his leg on the wrestling team two days before the dance and wore a suit with the leg of his suit pants safety pinned up over his cast.
Looking back...I was so stinking lucky.
Needless to say I remained a virgin til after the age of twenty...another thing I am pretty proud of. He turned out to be a bigger idiot than me and in hindsight a waste of my time and virtue.
Don't ever rush growing up. I know kids want to but they are insane.
When you are a teen you think everything is dire, every episode tragic and horrific.
Give yourself time to grow up. Give yourself time to become somewhat of the person you will end up to be.
Enjoy your childhood. Be a kid while you can still be a kid. You can never go back...trust me!
I WAS lucky. I grew up as a teen in the seventies and lived no where NEAR Woodstock but in comfy ole East Point, Georgia.
I wish my three kids could have been so lucky!
Take the good with the bad.
I was lucky but my kid's are confronted with evil at every turn in their lives. I know they often turn a deaf ear and mutter "Whatever" when I am talking to them but in my heart I know they hear me...at least I hope so.
I still want a guy to ask me to couple skate to "Seasons in the Sun."
Just once!
Til next time...COTTON
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