Carnival
By
Sharon McCarthy
For more than 30 years, Sharon
Vidmar McCarthy has enjoyed a career in public relations and communications for
Lehigh Valley businesses and nonprofits. She launched her own small firm, Surge
Communications, in October 2011, assisting small business, nonprofits and
individuals with social media, PR and promotional needs. Her passion, however,
is in creative writing and she covets free time to write poetry and prose via
several blogs
Growing up in the
outskirts of a small town, I have a sky-full of cherished summer memories. Each July, a flashy carnival caravan rolled
in, swallowing our small village with its garish lights, boisterous noise and
outlandish workers. I loved it! It was a cornucopia of pleasures,
complete with "bad boys," ladies lacking teeth but always dangling a
cigarette in their lips, decadent foods our parents didn't permit other times
and untethered rides hastily assembled with a few screws and some spit.
What drew me to it
then and continues to fill the corners of my mind today, was for that one humid
week in July when the Saxonburg Firemen’s Carnival came to our tiny Western
Pennsylvania town - there was magic. No,
not the glittery, golden castles and unicorn kind that every young girl dreams
of. Instead it was the "now-you-see-it, now-you-don't" kind of
magic.
My friends
and I would go every night, just to walk the perimeter as the calliope notes
filled the air. Clockwise, then counter (because you could definitely miss
something, or somebody, going in only one direction). We were a giggling pack, showing off teased
hair, experiments with makeup and our summer finest “cool.”
Part of the magic
was the overnight transformation of a previously pockmarked, cracked concrete
lot into a vivid portrait of mad delight. Dripping in razzle-dazzle, it was a
whirly dervish, a canvas upon which we could act out our new adolescent
boldness.
Since it was
fleeting, we had been issued a dispensation, special permission from the
universe: Blowing kisses to cute boys we
barely knew, sneaking inside a dreary, pitch-black tent to have our palms read,
devouring cotton candy until our tongues were blue and our insides queasy, and
accepting dares to flirt with the ferris wheel operator until he agreed to stop
us at the very top for an extra, extra long time. And, from that vantage -
our entire world was spread before us - trumpeting our arrival; beckoning us to
the dance. Sitting aboard a rocking ferris wheel car stopped at the top
on a hot summer night, manifests confidence in the heart of a 12-year-old girl.
Breathless, she encounters her power and she embraces it. She is a beaming
Queen with a candy apple scepter. She is
Athena aboard her stalwart stag. A
fearless lioness force builds within her. She, too, could be a fire-eater!
*****
Just as quickly as
it was assembled, the carnival's music went silent each third Sunday in July to
continue its tour to some southern Virginia town. I always asked my Dad
to drive by the grounds so I could see where (and if) it had been. I was
struck at how tiny the vacated grounds looked -- naked, barren. Snow cone
papers strewn about, black tire marks, the pungent smell of burnt oil and
rubber.
I grew
quiet and mourned the carnival’s passing and all that it had birthed. Turning the car around, my Dad reminded me
that evening we would enjoy the first juicy sweet corn of the season, freshly
picked from our garden. Harvest time was coming and with it a new school year,
promising exciting challenges and opportunities. I knew the Carnival would return -- a perfect
summer ritual; a harbinger of future adventures that may include volunteering
for the sword thrower!
Copyright 2012© Sharon McCarthy
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