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| © Kirk Butts 2012 |
I'm a recent transplant from Des
Moines, Iowa to Greenville, North Carolina. There are three things the Hawkeye
State's known for: sweet corn, delicious pork and literally tons of fun at the
state fair. The fair is to Iowa what the Indianapolis 500 is to Indiana or
retirement is to Florida. For one week a year, more than a million visitors collectively
weighing more than a billion pounds roll through the Iowa State Fair. It's an
ethnic and economic melting pot with something for everyone: live music,
livestock, butter cows, fried butter, fried everything, giant pumpkins, wood
chopping, tents, Vanilla Ice and of course carnival rides. To say the Iowa
State Fair is awesome doesn't do it justice. This year's theme was "It's
Fairlicious." So the Iowa State fair is so awesome, it can invent
its own words.
And that brings me to Greenville. We're right in the heart of Pitt County, named for an 18th century English statesman but a place whose name invokes thoughts of dog fighting more than British nobility. When I lived in Iowa people asked me what there was to do in Iowa. I said nothing unless you lived in Des Moines. Now people ask me what there is to do in North Carolina and I say everything unless you live in Greenville. I've been here with my girlfriend for a few months now. She's a brilliant doctor with an adventurous spirit, and I'm a decent writer who loves adventure. Boy, what an adventure it has been.
The two of us have struggled to
find our place and our groove in this community. The ocean is close. The Wright
Brothers flew their airplane only a couple hours away. Mountains, national
forests and professional sports are all an afternoon's drive away. But besides
big box shopping and a drive-thru hibachi restaurant, there's not much for
20-somethings to do in Greenville. So imagine our excitement when the county
fair came to town!
We ventured out last Saturday night
to catch the local wonder that was the Pitt County Fair. After fighting traffic
for an hour and losing the battle for parking for another hour more, we were
in. Ten bucks bought us two tickets to the greatest show in the center of Mideastern
North Carolina. Our first sight as we stepped through the turnstiles was a
massive, oozing dumpster full of a week's worth of fun and frivolity. Wonderful.
Once we finished taking pictures, we walked through a barn full of Shetland
ponies and miniature goats. Too bad the dumpster was regular sized. Then it was
on to junk food alley, or in this case junk food trailer park. We tried red
velvet funnel cake made from maraschino cherries and funnel cake, and washed it
down with fresh squeezed lemonade that tasted more like fresh squeezed Band-Aid.
And we saw a psychic who could read palms but didn't know who was calling her
cell phone without checking the caller ID.
Finally, it was time for the
midway. As my girlfriend and I got close we were blown away by the enormous
crowd. It seems Pitt County's double digit unemployment rate just wasn't enough
to keep the unemployed at home. Thousands upon thousands of people were packed
like Occupy protesters into the grassy areas between the carnival rides, skill
games and funhouses, where the word "fun" has been stretched to its
absolute breaking point. This truly is the 99%.
It was clear most folks here simply
left their troubles at home, pausing the haunts of real life for a few more
days, or perhaps only a few more hours of idleness. For five dollars to enter,
four dollars to ride the ferris wheel, three bucks for three darts to pop a
balloon and live racing pigs absolutely free of charge, the county fair is a
reasonably affordable escape from reality, even if you’re struggling to make
ends meet. On the other side of that proverbial coin, were the men and what
looked like some women taking everyone’s money. The carnies have this whole game
figured out. Whether unemployment is 7.8%, 10.3% or 50.0%, people are going to
go to the fair. We’re Americans, dammit. This is what we do.
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| © Kirk Butts 2012 |
The life of a carny is one of fast
times and long roads. They’re like rock stars but without the musical talent.
Carnies work hard, they play hard, and it’s not hard to see that they live hard,
too. Just look at them. Where else can you find a guy with emphysema who blows
up balloons for a living? These freaks know a great investment when they see
one, and they never have to look far. Main Street is their Wall Street, and
your family is their stock market. With so many people crammed into the
confines of the fairgrounds, it’s more like a stockyard market. And baby, it’s
always bullish here. I doubt there are many places on the internet that will
use arithmetic to explain why a carny’s job makes good fiscal sense, but I’m
going to ask you to do the math. You don’t have a mortgage. Same goes for
property taxes. Forget student loans. Meals are free. Goldfish remain an
affordable commodity. And 50 states and 3,000 counties across this great nation
equal one hell of a lot of fairs. Any other career now seems like a pretty
stupid venture.
I’m a freelance writer, but carnies
are in essence freelance people. Survival is their job and they answer to no
one.
Our economy is slowly improving but
it remains a rocky road right now. One out of every 13 Americans is actively
looking for work and unsuccessfully finding it. Lots of people are taking
part-time jobs just to pay some of the bills, but you better believe they still
feel unemployed. So the next time you
find yourself at a county, state or world’s fair, don’t find yourself judging
the guys and gals behind the booths and below the rides. They control the water
guns, the skee balls and the milk bottles and they can spot a sucker a mile
away. And if you think you’re better than them just because you have a “real”
job, take a real close look at those fat stacks of cash they tuck in their
fanny packs.
I bet that stack is fatter than
you. That is unless you’re a visitor at the Iowa State Fair.
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