| Author | Message | ||
| native dancer
Advanced Member Username: nativedancer Post Number: 233 Registered: 12-2004 |
we called it the circus then a little carnival that could pack itself up in a handful of trucks and pitch its tents in parking lots just about anywhere it could find a welcome which in our town was the blacktop at wilkinson's furniture store across the street from the red pig. some circus! but oh it was such fun and so scary and you could walk to it right up the street from your house and in the evenings after suppertime me and e.c. morris would put our paperboy change together and go pay a visit like going to a stageshow only we knew that something dirty was going on behind the canvas and that these carnies were not normal people but runaways all of them or escaped from prison or from their poor families like mama said leaving their children to starve whilst they lived the life of riley traipsing around the world with sluts that would dance the hoochie coochie for twenty-five cents only the stage here was some planks on sawhorses draped with a blanket and there was just one woman that rolled her hips and tried to get us inside without any law back then about who was a minor and so there we were standing inside this hot little tent me and e.c. and a half-dozen lintheads from locke mill while she put on some things and took off some things and you could almost see all the way to the end of her nipples while she danced to a .45 of sixty minute man and some monkeys screeched and jumped up and down in their cages behind the curtains where some guy was singing to them in italian like it was the end of a opera and he was dying | ||
| michael julius sottak
Advanced Member Username: julius Post Number: 1772 Registered: 12-2003 |
"Something Wicked This Way Comes"....................okay, Jim...after I stopped laughing at how you grab truth and ugly and bash their heads together, I wiped the blood off my chin, came up smiling... keep them comming, Amigo! | ||
| Teresa White
Valued Member Username: teresa_white Post Number: 247 Registered: 01-2005 |
Jim, Just love the easy flow of this. My, but you've certainly captured the mood of these old-time carnivals. Interesting title too. You make it all look so easy --wish I could write like this! Best, Teresa | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 5840 Registered: 11-1998 |
Should I say I'm just about old enough to remember these things? Nah, that gives away too much. *LOL* Boy, carnies and carnivals do certainly seem tame today in comparison. Or maybe it was just because we were so young then. You captured the seamy side perfectly, j. Wonder whatever happened to these people? I don't figure them for the nursing home type, do you? | ||
| Michael MV
Senior Member Username: michaelv Post Number: 1048 Registered: 11-2003 |
Great twist on the title; and great that it's real  MV | ||
| native dancer
Advanced Member Username: nativedancer Post Number: 236 Registered: 12-2004 |
julius, teresa, and M, i'm really pleased you could stop by and get a peek at this hoochie coochie mama lol. what happened to at least one roustabout, M, was that he stayed behind after the carnival packed up and departed -- got married, started up a business doing wrought iron decorative work, and became a fairly well-known local. he's retired now, and his son has taken over the business, but his work is in evidence at a lot of fancy homes in the area, which have his iron railings and fences to remember him by. but that's another poem for someday. jim | ||
| Laurie Byro
Advanced Member Username: lauriette Post Number: 1385 Registered: 11-2003 |
enjoyed this and also your follow up on what became of these people, can't wait for the poem you promised on that laurie |
