My father had a “teach Alan to work” project. I loved to play, and ignored my chores. At ten I endured humiliating failure at the morning paper delivery job he found me, and at eleven I broke the family lawn mower mowing neighbors lawns.

Both my parents worked and believed leaving me to play with friends all summer was asking for trouble. They were right, but I was having none of it. So I was sullen about going to Boy Scout camp for a month, even though I mostly had fun the previous year. But Fourth of July was coming,  ̶  fireworks, carnival, picnic! Yahoo!

Imagine my dismay when I overheard my parents talking.

“I don’t know, Raymond, working with those people?”

“Nan, the carnival is sponsored by the Lion’s Club.”

“Couldn’t he do something with the Rotary Club picnic instead.”

“That’s only one day and it’s volunteer. The Carney is paying. They only have a few slots, but Tom says he’ll hold one for Alan.”

The Lexington Lions Club hosted the Carnival each Fourth of July, and the Rotary Club hosted the picnic as fundraisers. The picnic cost five dollars, the food was donated, and the help volunteer. The Lions Club sold the tickets to the rides for a portion of the proceeds. The Carnival company kept all the proceeds from the ‘games of skill and chance,” but they had to hire some town boys, mostly sons of Lions Club members or their friends like my dad.

The carnival opened on Wednesday at 1:00 pm and ran through 11:00 pm Saturday night after the fireworks, So I went down to the park on Tuesday for the briefing. There were about ten Lexington boys. I was the youngest and the only one there with my father.

An older man from the carnival company explained the work.

“My name is Bill, but everyone calls me ‘Pops’.”

He was bald except for a white fringe, older than my dad, I guessed. I remember he had huge forearms. One of the other kids called him Popeye behind his back and we snickered. Pops looked kind, but he also looked like you wouldn’t call him Popeye to his face.

“You’ll be paid at the end of the carnival. You’re here to work. You’ll be assigned to one of our people, and if they say you aren’t working you’ll be fired. We got no time for lip or attitude, so whatever your boss says goes. You boys got that?”

I could see my father was happy with this speech.

We all mumbled consent.

Some were to work on the rides; I was assigned to Artie on the games on the Fair Way.  I was to show up at 8:00 am sharp the next day. I grumbled about that. I was not then, and am not now, a “morning person.”

I rode my twelfth birthday 26” English Raleigh bike to the park. I’d added flame decals to the fenders from plastic hot rod models I built.

“Bike goes fast, eh kid?” Artie laughed.

I blushed and studied my dirty white low topped Converse sneakers.

“I’m Artie. Whatta I call you?”

“Al”

“OK, Al, we got work to do.”

The Fair Way was two rows of “booths,” blue and yellow striped three-sided canvas tents with counter and awnings on the open side.  There were about fifteen “games of skill and chance” in the booths. The  “streets” had rides at both ends. It wasn’t a big carnival, but I remember a Ferris wheel, a Tilt-a Whirl, and some kiddie rides.

Artie and I first went around installing some canvas tarps over the streets.

“Specting rain on Friday. If it does, too many people will huddle under the booth awnings, so ya can’t play, ‘n’ we can’t have that.”

Artie was shorter than me. I had shot up that year to about 5’8”. I have no idea how old he was. 35? 45? He was lean and muscular with a little pot belly. His deeply lined face was topped with black hair swept back from his receding hairline with hair cream.

Artie smoked constantly, in fact, that’s what I remember most about him, cigarette smoke and dangling ash. I hadn’t started smoking yet, but he offered me one every other time he lit up. His gravelly voice had an accent I didn’t recognize, New York or New Jersey maybe.

After we finished with the canvas he handed me a box of round clear light bulbs and a short step ladder and sent me up and down the Fair Way looking for burnt out bulbs. I replaced three. Checking became my setup job for the next three days.

I met Marge, who I think  ran the Fair Way. She tried me out on a couple of games. One was the “dime pitch,” where you were given five dimes and pitched them onto orange glass plates from about ten feet. The dimes mostly slid off. I didn’t get the job of working that booth because I butter-fingered the change making. You had to be fast taking dollars or quarters and exchanging them for little five dime stacks.

Marge sent me back to Artie. Artie set me up on one of his games. “Bowl-em-over-and-you-win.” The booth had three “lanes,” ten foot long 2”x 10” planks, at the end of which were a small pyramid of white metal “milk bottles.” Players were given three of what looked like softballs and told to “bowl” over the milk cans.  It had to be a “bowl,” meaning an underhand release that rolled on, or mostly on, the plank.

The game looked dead easy. It wasn’t. The cans were weighted. The planks were a little high for a bowling stance, and were sloped slightly downward. The balls weren’t really softballs, and were too light.

“The secret’s always in the balls,” grinned Artie.

I blushed.

Artie taught me the “trick.” You could induce top spin by pulling your nails back on the ball, which meant it hopped at the last minute, jumping to hit the bottles at just the right place to topple them.

My job was barker, incessantly shouting “Bowl-em-over-and-you-win,”  and demonstrator. Whenever someone said, “This is impossible!” Artie would say. “Show ’em, Al.” I could usually knock them over with one of the three balls and then Artie would say,

“Kid’s from here – never did this before yesterday. Next.”

Most of the games had a “trick,” targets placed at a slight angle, that made a projectile bounce off, unevenly weighted ring toss rings that made them  wobble just before landing. The games weren’t impossible, but you had to know the trick and compensate.

Sometimes players would get upset and start yelling “Not Fair!” or “Rigged!” Most times the “demonstration” would cool the hothead down, but if someone wouldn’t let it go, a ”cooler” arrived, sometimes it was Bruce. Bruce was 6’4” and built like a refrigerator. Bruce was as nice as could be. I never saw violence or even heard a raised voice. Coolers were masters at de-escalation, talking softly, giving the person an ‘out” an opportunity to save face and walk away.

When I look back at this experience, after a career spent working with organizations, what I remember was the tightness of the carney culture. There was good natured kidding, but sitting around in off hours there were lots of stories of how “we got each other’s back.”

And even as an outsider I was treated well. I was told to fix it when I messed up and I was praised for “learning the booth.” I was made to believe I belonged – Al’s “born Carney,” Artie said and gave me a sip of his beer and then later his whisky. I hated both. “Don’t tell Pops.” I didn’t.

On Saturday night, July 4^th, just before the fireworks, Artie handed me my pay envelop, with cash inside. I doubt I was paid more than fifty cents an hour.

“You know that story about running away to join the Carney, Al?” I nodded. There had been many such stories in the last four days.

“It’s all bullshit! You stay in school. Get a better future.” Artie shook my hand with such a firm grip I didn’t realize he had something in his hand which he transferred to me. Ten dollars!

“Maybe see you next year, Al.” I thought I would, but the next two summers were taken with my father’s “teach Alan to work” project, caddy camp, and by the time I came back at fifteen it was a different carney company.

My father’s project apparently worked. I worked too many 100-hour weeks in consulting, and here I am on a retired Saturday writing this post, “still working, just not getting paid for it.”😊