Originally Posted September 15, 2010

By Smaktakula

Just ‘Cause You Didn’t Finish High School An’ Ain’t Got But Four Teeth In Your Mouth An’ One Uh Them Not Worth Uh Damn Nohow Don’t Mean You Can’t Live Uh Fulfilling Life Amongst The Traveling Folk.

There are those unique individuals who dread the notion of riding a desk until retirement, who long to work not in a stuffy cubicle, but under God’s own sky, and who chafe against the constricting mores of traditional society.  For those willing to do whatever it takes to find it, there is still a place for the truly free man among the traveling folk of the carnival.

Every day, a growing number of Americans are eschewing a staid and plastic life of comfort and safety, instead casting their lot among the fringy legions of  that uniquely American bottom-feeder, the carny.  A carny is free to pursue his own dreams, be they the simple aspiration to drink turpentine until the onset of blindness, or more dramatic expressions of individuality, such as marrying a she-goat.  The carnival doesn’t judge.

Effete College Boys Read William Faulkner And Charles Bukowski, But Carnies Live The Life.

Not just any sketchy drifter with a rap sheet and a love for Night Train can be a Merlin of the Midway–it takes a special commitment.  Much like a monk who joins an order, the carny life is a world unto itself.

Everyone On The Midway Has His Own Story; The Carnival Is Haunted By Tales. Curiously, They All Begin And End With Methamphetamine.