Originally printed in the Advance-Titan, October 2005. Why all this malaise about going to the carnival? Why hyperbolize those lousy feelings of dread and disappointment in the documentation of a fairly decent childhood memory? “The Smoky Room Upstairs” is pretty dour, I’ll admit, but at least it conveys a sense of nonplussed honesty. For dreamlike childhood nostalgia, John Lennon had “Strawberry Fields Forever.” I have “The Smoky Room Upstairs.” What a gyp.
My dad grew up in Mt. Calvary, a tiny village not far from my hometown of Fond du Lac. Every August, the meek and frequently sloshed village of Mt. Calvary hosts a carnival at Fireman’s Park. It is aptly referred to as the Fireman’s Picnic.
It’s not my aim to deride the spirit and tradition of the Mt. Calvary faithful. The modest town treasury simply did not permit them to splurge on the crème de le crème of redneck carnival rides—namely the Gravitron and the Zipper. Throughout my childhood summers, my parents would waste their money so I could waste some tickets on a ride in which rusty carts crawled clockwise on a track fifteen feet in diameter. It’s not like I was expecting loopty-loops and laser shows, but come on, give a kid something to work with, you know?
Only one ride posed a legitimate threat to the uprising of a corn dog you had just choked down. It was a blend between a high-octane carousel and a demonic swing-set. A dozen or so seats dotted the perimeter, and they were attached to chains that dangled from propellers. Once the thing got going, the propellers spun rapidly around-and-around-and-around, and the rider got a sense of what it feels like to be an unbreakable string of snot dangling from the blade of a helicopter. If memory serves, this ride was called “Discount Nausea.”
Discount Nausea could only be tolerated in great moderation, and with little interest in the tame rides, I sought out the prize booths maintained by jabber-jawing carnies. Sadly, throwing darts at balloons and executing a pyramid of empty beer cans with a single shot from a B.B. gun were talents that eluded me. Though my ambition was to win a Bartman t-shirt, or a least a miniature poster of Don Majikowski, I usually went home with the humiliating consolation prize: an artificial clip-on feather, colored the shade of a peacock’s underbelly. Not only did the carnies take my money—okay, my dad’s money, but my frickin’ tickets—the sadistic bumpkins also had the nerve to bash my impending manhood.
“I’m an eight-year-old boy,” I’d squeak. “I play with Ninja Turtles. What the heck do you expect me to do with a frilly blue feather?
And the carnie would guffaw, opening his mouth wide to reveal five lonesome maggots jutting from his gums.
“Weeelll, I’m sure you can think of somethin’, Nancy-boy. WHO’S NEXT?!”
It’s been said that human beings alternate between afflictions of either boredom or pain for their entire lifetimes. I’m not a very optimistic person, but I think that’s nonsense, primarily because orgasms—however fleeting they might be—are neither boring nor painful.
I mention the boredom/ pain tangent because, after wandering through the confines of Fireman’s Park, yawning in brief intervals, I would whimsically attach the fake feather’s jagged and metallic clip to my pointer finger and withstand the painful pinch until I could take it no longer. At last I would remove the clip urgently, and then shake my throbbing red finger for a while. The boredom didn’t feel so bad then.
My favorite attraction at the Fireman’s Picnic was the Moonwalk Tent. (No, the Moonwalk Tent wasn’t a diabolical scheme concocted by Michael Jackson in an unsuspecting village; it was a shaded enclosure with a floor made of puffy inner tube patches. Oddly enough, though, Tito Jackson was there, making sure no one got hurt, diligently earning seven dollars an hour.) Rambunctious hopping is an activity sure to engage children. The Moonwalk Tent had its charms, but after ten minutes or so, the fetid stench of sweaty socks lingering in a roasting confinement really got to you. Plus I was always bummed out about the absence of a top rope and turnbuckles inside the Moonwalk Tent. There aren’t too many places in which a top rope and turnbuckles can be set up feasibly, but dammit, inside the Moonwalk Tent is one of those places. And since I was too young to enact that infamous “Revenge of the Nerds” fantasy, I soon bid good riddance to the Moonwalk Tent.
It was after all these unfulfilling pursuits that I at last discovered the Smoky Room Upstairs, which was maintained by the local volunteer fire department.
The Smoky Room Upstairs was the size of a two-story hobbit-house, its dimensions comparable to a doublewide trailer living room. A tube the size of a manhole cover fed into the upstairs, and it traced back to a smoke machine with a generator that churned maddeningly.
Like I stated before, the Smoky Room Upstairs was run by the volunteer fire department, in order to enlighten kids on safety precautions in the event of a household blaze. A mustachioed volunteer would usher kids up a short flight of stairs on the side of the diminutive structure, above the seemingly vacant first floor and into the upstairs room. I say “seemingly vacant” because I had a hunch the off-duty firemen used it as a windowless sanctuary to play games of Euchre and chug beer.
His shoulders and neck craning at a painful angle, golden helmet scraping against the ceiling, our guide waved us all into the cramped room. It was furnished like an oversized dollhouse. In the midst of his boring safety lecture, he scolded a careless youngster who plopped down on an artificial couch. It’s hard for kids to discern a prop from the real thing. That’s why the little buggers feel like cold-blooded assassins when they aim a Daisy rifle at the mailman’s head.
Though the interior decorator did a half-assed job, the electrician was quite ambitious. The square perimeter was plastered with about a dozen outlets, at shin level. The fireman instilled a fear of outlets into our little hearts that day, warning us of the dangers of ramming a fork in there or overloading the amplitude as the dad from “A Christmas Story” would do.
As the lecture drew to a close, the fireman attached his gasmask and cued the smoke machine. I’ll never forget gazing at that vent, watching the smoke wisp gracefully and ominously into our air supply, feeling like I was at the mercy of a deranged super-villain and his elaborate death chamber. Years later, whenever I was smoking weed in a cramped room, my thoughts sparking like microwaved tinfoil, an inverted bog hovering over the heads of my friends, I’d recall this image.
Pretty soon, when the smoke had reached a murky, almost opaque density, we were instructed to crawl out of the Smoky Room Upstairs (a trek of roughly ten feet) and rejoin the outside world. Then it was once again time to scam money from our wasted parents so we could buy tickets for rides and booths until it was time to go home.
My dad grew up in Mt. Calvary, a tiny village not far from my hometown of Fond du Lac. Every August, the meek and frequently sloshed village of Mt. Calvary hosts a carnival at Fireman’s Park. It is aptly referred to as the Fireman’s Picnic.
It’s not my aim to deride the spirit and tradition of the Mt. Calvary faithful. The modest town treasury simply did not permit them to splurge on the crème de le crème of redneck carnival rides—namely the Gravitron and the Zipper. Throughout my childhood summers, my parents would waste their money so I could waste some tickets on a ride in which rusty carts crawled clockwise on a track fifteen feet in diameter. It’s not like I was expecting loopty-loops and laser shows, but come on, give a kid something to work with, you know?
Only one ride posed a legitimate threat to the uprising of a corn dog you had just choked down. It was a blend between a high-octane carousel and a demonic swing-set. A dozen or so seats dotted the perimeter, and they were attached to chains that dangled from propellers. Once the thing got going, the propellers spun rapidly around-and-around-and-around, and the rider got a sense of what it feels like to be an unbreakable string of snot dangling from the blade of a helicopter. If memory serves, this ride was called “Discount Nausea.”
Discount Nausea could only be tolerated in great moderation, and with little interest in the tame rides, I sought out the prize booths maintained by jabber-jawing carnies. Sadly, throwing darts at balloons and executing a pyramid of empty beer cans with a single shot from a B.B. gun were talents that eluded me. Though my ambition was to win a Bartman t-shirt, or a least a miniature poster of Don Majikowski, I usually went home with the humiliating consolation prize: an artificial clip-on feather, colored the shade of a peacock’s underbelly. Not only did the carnies take my money—okay, my dad’s money, but my frickin’ tickets—the sadistic bumpkins also had the nerve to bash my impending manhood.
“I’m an eight-year-old boy,” I’d squeak. “I play with Ninja Turtles. What the heck do you expect me to do with a frilly blue feather?
And the carnie would guffaw, opening his mouth wide to reveal five lonesome maggots jutting from his gums.
“Weeelll, I’m sure you can think of somethin’, Nancy-boy. WHO’S NEXT?!”
It’s been said that human beings alternate between afflictions of either boredom or pain for their entire lifetimes. I’m not a very optimistic person, but I think that’s nonsense, primarily because orgasms—however fleeting they might be—are neither boring nor painful.
I mention the boredom/ pain tangent because, after wandering through the confines of Fireman’s Park, yawning in brief intervals, I would whimsically attach the fake feather’s jagged and metallic clip to my pointer finger and withstand the painful pinch until I could take it no longer. At last I would remove the clip urgently, and then shake my throbbing red finger for a while. The boredom didn’t feel so bad then.
My favorite attraction at the Fireman’s Picnic was the Moonwalk Tent. (No, the Moonwalk Tent wasn’t a diabolical scheme concocted by Michael Jackson in an unsuspecting village; it was a shaded enclosure with a floor made of puffy inner tube patches. Oddly enough, though, Tito Jackson was there, making sure no one got hurt, diligently earning seven dollars an hour.) Rambunctious hopping is an activity sure to engage children. The Moonwalk Tent had its charms, but after ten minutes or so, the fetid stench of sweaty socks lingering in a roasting confinement really got to you. Plus I was always bummed out about the absence of a top rope and turnbuckles inside the Moonwalk Tent. There aren’t too many places in which a top rope and turnbuckles can be set up feasibly, but dammit, inside the Moonwalk Tent is one of those places. And since I was too young to enact that infamous “Revenge of the Nerds” fantasy, I soon bid good riddance to the Moonwalk Tent.
It was after all these unfulfilling pursuits that I at last discovered the Smoky Room Upstairs, which was maintained by the local volunteer fire department.
The Smoky Room Upstairs was the size of a two-story hobbit-house, its dimensions comparable to a doublewide trailer living room. A tube the size of a manhole cover fed into the upstairs, and it traced back to a smoke machine with a generator that churned maddeningly.
Like I stated before, the Smoky Room Upstairs was run by the volunteer fire department, in order to enlighten kids on safety precautions in the event of a household blaze. A mustachioed volunteer would usher kids up a short flight of stairs on the side of the diminutive structure, above the seemingly vacant first floor and into the upstairs room. I say “seemingly vacant” because I had a hunch the off-duty firemen used it as a windowless sanctuary to play games of Euchre and chug beer.
His shoulders and neck craning at a painful angle, golden helmet scraping against the ceiling, our guide waved us all into the cramped room. It was furnished like an oversized dollhouse. In the midst of his boring safety lecture, he scolded a careless youngster who plopped down on an artificial couch. It’s hard for kids to discern a prop from the real thing. That’s why the little buggers feel like cold-blooded assassins when they aim a Daisy rifle at the mailman’s head.
Though the interior decorator did a half-assed job, the electrician was quite ambitious. The square perimeter was plastered with about a dozen outlets, at shin level. The fireman instilled a fear of outlets into our little hearts that day, warning us of the dangers of ramming a fork in there or overloading the amplitude as the dad from “A Christmas Story” would do.
As the lecture drew to a close, the fireman attached his gasmask and cued the smoke machine. I’ll never forget gazing at that vent, watching the smoke wisp gracefully and ominously into our air supply, feeling like I was at the mercy of a deranged super-villain and his elaborate death chamber. Years later, whenever I was smoking weed in a cramped room, my thoughts sparking like microwaved tinfoil, an inverted bog hovering over the heads of my friends, I’d recall this image.
Pretty soon, when the smoke had reached a murky, almost opaque density, we were instructed to crawl out of the Smoky Room Upstairs (a trek of roughly ten feet) and rejoin the outside world. Then it was once again time to scam money from our wasted parents so we could buy tickets for rides and booths until it was time to go home.
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