When The Carnival Came To Town, Part One
Growing up in Oglesby, Illinois, summers followed a predictable rhythm. There were family picnics in the park, backyard barbecues where charcoal smoke drifted lazily over the neighborhood, fishing trips along the Little Vermilion River, shooting off fireworks on the Fourth of July (some legal, some not) bike rides to the A&W for a frosted mug of root beer, and endless games of whiffle ball that somehow stretched until darkness swallowed the last fly ball. And then, there was the carnival. If Christmas belonged to winter, the Fourth of July to summer and Halloween to autumn, the carnival belonged to childhood. Every year, usually sometime in June or again in August, rumors would begin circulating that the carnival was coming. Posters appeared in store windows. Flyers were taped to telephone poles. Somebody's older brother claimed to have seen trucks heading this way from Peru or LaSalle. Suddenly, the countdown was on. To adults, it was merely a traveling amusement compan...
