Stories for my grandchildren - the West Texas Fair

When first my way to fair I took
  Few pence in purse had I,
And long I used to stand and look
  At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care
  To buy a thing, I can;
The pence are here and here's the fair,
  But where's the lost young man?

When I set out for college at ACU (then ACC) I had a job as a disk jockey at KRBC Radio. In fact, I had to leave for Abilene to start work before school started. It took some finagling to get into the dorm that early, but I moved in at the same time as the football players and lived on an empty hall in Mabee dorm for two weeks.

I had the night shift at the radio station - 8pm till midnight. Worked out fine for me, but it drove the dorm RAs crazy - I was never there for bed check. Yes, they did come around every night to check on you back then; I don't suppose they do that now. At least not in the Mens dorms.

I had only been at the job - and school - for a couple of weeks when the West Texas Fair began. KRBC parked a trailer, outfitted with a small console with turntables and tape machines (yes, we actually played records back then. We really were disc jockeys) on the midway. I sat behind my console, looking out the window, playing records and broadcasting out onto the fairway. People stopped by and chatted on the air, and I interviewed the stars that performed at the fair - like Brenda Lee, Connie Francis and Brian Hiland (think Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Polka Dot Bikini. No? I didn't think so).

On one side of the broadcast trailer was a couple selling typical fair and carnival souvenirs - dolls, and banners, plaster gorillas and geegaws of all types. We visited some and I learned that they lived up North and toured the fair and carnival circuit about 5 months out of the year. The rest of the time they took life easy. They were at the fair every year that I was, and probably for many more after I left.

On the other side of the trailer that first year was a motorized crane that had a car - I don't remember what kind, but it was small - hoisted up in the air about 30 feet. An automobile dealership was sponsoring this act and there was a guy living in the car. The hype was that he would live in the car, suspended high in the air for the entire two weeks of the fair. People would come and gawk, and there was a little intercom set up and the gawkers could talk to the guy. Mostly they wanted to know about acts of nature. He would always tell the girls not to stand too close under the car.

My shift lasted until midnight, but the fair shut down about ten pm, so for the last hour especially, the midway was deserted and me and the guy in the car had the place to ourselves. It was at that point that he would swing out to the crane boom and climb down and come in the trailer and chat. Several nights his wife or girlfriend - I never learned which - would come by and they would go off to get something to eat. At least once she climbed up the boom to visit him in the car. Perhaps they joined the 30' high club. I didn't stick around.

The next year in that space, they had a guy "buried alive." He was in a box buried a few feet underground, with a glassed-in viewing duct above his face. He too had an intercom and he too got asked the acts of nature question. I never heard what he told people. Like the other guy, when the fair shut down, he slid along a tunnel to an opening that was behind the tent in the back of the public area. We never did visit though. He wasn't the social type.

As for the fair itself? I didn't actually see much of it during that time, but we came back when the kids were little. "Not ride that boat. Not ride that horsey."