True fact: I Was A Teenage Carnie.

This little Amusements was owned by the family of S., one of my best friends. They toured NB and the Gaspé and for a couple of summers when I was 12 and 13 I and another friend, J, went with.
And I will tell you: we had some *times*

Sometimes I ran Balloon Darts, sometimes I operated The Cobra. When we were on the road I slept in the Balloon Darts trailer. Just a sleeping bag on the floor and there were prizes all over the walls but I had the whole place to myself and it was bigger than my bedroom back home.

Plus I was making my own way. I had already been working for a few years — my family didn’t have much so as a kid I’d earned a bit around the neighbourhood delivering newspapers, cutting grass, that kind of thing — but this was just me and my friends and the wide open summer!

Really it just gave me enough money to buy myself school supplies and clothes for back to school. Everybody got paid $25 cash per day which was frightful even by New Brunswick standards circa late 80s.

Once I asked one of the Very Adult Carnies why he’d work for so little and he said VACs got hella UI stamps so they could live well during the off season even though they earned a pittance all summer. And he also said he liked it so

S.’s dad walked around with a thick cash roll in his trouser pocket and would loose the rubber band and flip off the bills he owed you. Minus any tab you owed for eating like steamed hot dogs all summer. I loved getting paid off a fat roll of cash like that. I liked the grit.

Anyway like I said we had times. Mostly and it probably goes without saying they weren’t *good* exactly but honestly I still loved every day so much. There was a lot for a kid to soak in around a travelling band of questionable alignment.

There is no single doubt in my mind that this formative experience lead directly to my relative success in my chosen field of stagecraft.

We would strike the carnival every Sunday night and drive to the next town we were booked at, a big caravan of trailers and folded up rides, you know the ones. And I’d be in the passenger seat of T.’s pickup hauling Balloon Darts.

T. was a VAC and sometimes he and I would run BD together. If it was slow we would throw darts at each other’s legs. It was a game we had with rules and everything. I mean let’s be honest it was a game T. had but I didn’t really mind, he was otherwise good to me.

He was good to me in that he taught me how to hustle and slip some bills into my waistband instead of the money belt.
You know, life skills.
?

Anyway while we were driving to the next town we would had certain truck stops we’d visit and that’s when I started drinking coffee. 12 years old and drinking black coffee at truck stops with carnies.

Most of the VACs travelled in RVs so they had some comforts? but for the rest of us it was port-a-potties and maybe a shower at the Rec Centre wherever we were set up.

One time in Victoria County a new guy on crew ended up on the wrong side of a couple of the rougher carnies. One night after close, me, S. and J. are hanging out in the dark with some local girls, and we watched how while New Guy was sitting down they tipped his port-a-potty over

door side down.

Drunks would come by after dark looking for free rides. Invariably they called me “kid.” I fucking hated that, “hey kid let us ride for free.”
In Gloucester County I was on The Cobra which was this like spinning ride

And one night I let a couple of them on for free. Spinning both kinds of backwards, and I went to get some popcorn.
When I came back.
Well good thing there was a hose at The Cobra.

Look I have a million boring stories about those two years but you get the point so I’ll leave you with this:
The best thing I got out of the experience was work ethic? the people? seeing my best friend hit by lightning? No, it was the right to say
I WAS A TEENAGE CARNIE