Working the Carnival in the “old days”

There’s charm to a fire first thing in the morning. I generally rise well before first light and now that the first snow has appeared on the mountaintop across the lake there’s a need for a good fire to chase away the morning chill. Sitting there, watching the flicker of the flames throw shadows around the room is comforting. It’s easy to get reflective and I allow myself that gift.
There’s nothing moving when I get up. Silence rules. Some days I swear I can hear the rustle of the trees when the first light breaks and it takes me back to an amazing array of memory.
But then, after fifty-five years on the planet there’s a fair bit to look back on. I’ve been busy lately, writing, preparing to lecture for a term at the University of Victoria and trying my hand at visual art. It makes me think about all the work and all the jobs I’ve done in my time. One of the first jobs I ever had was on a carnival. I was sixteen and I had left my adopted home and found my way to the streets and the carnival came along just when I needed the work. I worked the small roller coaster for a while but I eventually became a Ferris wheel worker or a wheelman as they said on the show.
In those days there were still some of the old ground-mounted wheels around. Nowadays Ferris wheels are trailer mounted and hydraulic so that they go up with the push of a button. But in those days we built them from the ground up. It started with a slab of foundry steel that weighed three hundred pounds. Above that were the twin towers and the hub, all cast from the same steel.
It was hard, heavy work but worth it. Something in me loved the feeling of putting all my strength into getting something done. There was a reward in that and I enjoyed the feeling of tiredness when the ride was finally up. I loved the feeling of giving people a sense of fun and adventure and the traveling from town to town eased the discomfort I felt at not really having a home to go to. The carnie had become my home. When the show was over we worked long into the night to tear down the ride. There was always a gang of us, local teenagers and eager men from town and we had great fun competing against other ride gangs to see who could get their trailers loaded first. It was fun to heft huge heavy pieces of steel around fast and all the joking, teasing and laughing made it all so much more special.
But I think what I loved the most was the road. Late at night, tired from the effort of getting the wheel packed up and the long days running the ride for people, I’d sink into the seat of the old Mack truck and fall asleep to the feel of the road humming beneath us. When I’d wake it would be early morning and the sun would be rising above a new landscape. We’d pull into the next town and the sleepy feel of it was always special. The feel of all those possible lives. We’d mark out the new lot and get to work again.
Setting up a carnival lot was an awesome display of community. People helped each other. When our ride was up we moved down the line and pitched in to get others up too. It really was my first introduction to tribalism, that coming together for a common purpose. When it was all set I would climb up and stand on the main hub of the wheel. I would stand and there and smoke and look around at the town, the fields beyond it and the carnival lot below. See, my life was in transit then. The carnival was my home but I yearned for more. I wanted permanence. Standing on the hub of that wheel looking out across the land I could almost feel myself slowly growing older and the idea, the hope of finding a place to set my feet down and was distant, nebulous and impossible then. That was years ago. It was the early 70s and I was a teenager. Since then I’ve gone through a lot of jobs, lived in a hundred towns and watched a ton of dreams sprout, grow and fade. I’ve found my way to a gamut of experience that shaped me, formed me and allowed me the grace in the end to become who I was created to be. I found home in a vee of mountains overlooking a lake. But it’s everywhere – when you find the truth of you, you’re home wherever you go.