This bit is a re-run from November, 2002.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I just read, she was enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEnough to be getting started with, I guess. You can\u2019t run a sideshow with only one attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what an attraction!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s true. She was the foundation of his fortune, right enough. \u2018Course, she ruined him too.\u201d Hank leaned over and spat in the can by the wood burning stove, then tipped back in his chair, front legs off of the floor. \u201cYou never saw her, I collect?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know I never did, Hank. That was all before my time. Hasn\u2019t been a carny through here since I was a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hank nodded. \u201cHas been a long time at that. Used to be we\u2019d get \u2019em three times a year, spring, summer and fall, like clockwork. All us boys\u2019d skip school to watch \u2019em set up. \u2018Cept in the summer, of course, there was no school in the summer in those days. We\u2019d sneak into the sideshow to see the geek, and have nightmares for days. I recollect how Bobby Hill terrified our entire boyscout troop with a dead chicken head after that. But I\u2019m rambling. It gets that way
\nafter a while\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo go on about Bolinda, Hank.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yes, Bolinda of Bolivia, the Living Atlas. \u2018Course, she was really from Brooklyn, but it\u2019s not like anyone was paying to hear her speak. They had this booth, d\u2019ye see, a big booth with canvas all round, open to the sky, and a little stage at one end, with a curtain behind it. You\u2019d pay your nickel to get in, and then she\u2019d come out from behind the curtain wearing a few inches of cotton. \u2018Tain\u2019t nothing to what what you see on TV these days, like that Pamela Anderson, but let me tell you back then it was hot stuff, with North and South America curving down one side, and Africa on the other. All us boys knew that after supper they did a special show, where you paid 50 cents and got to see the Azores, and maybe even Australia. We thought a lot about Australia in those days. Never met anybody who\u2019d actually seen the special show, though some boys liked to claim they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how did she ruin him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it was the drinking, wasn\u2019t it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was an alcoholic?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Twasn\u2019t so much that as the beer. You throw back enough sixpacks while sitting on your little stool behind the curtain, and it\u2019s bound to have an effect. Got so she\u2019d come out from behind the curtain in stages, like the phases of the moon, and then she\u2019d be so tipsy she\u2019d kind of sway. We\u2019re not as scientifically backward out here as the city folks like to think, but I guess twarn\u2019t no one wanted to see continental drift up close and personal.\u201d Hank spit into the can again. \u201cI finally got to see Australia when I was in the Navy. It\u2019s a fine place, but it didn\u2019t have a patch on old Bolinda.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This bit is a re-run from November, 2002. \u201cFrom what I just read, she was enough.\u201d \u201cEnough to be getting started with, I guess. You can\u2019t run a sideshow with only one attraction.\u201d \u201cBut what an attraction!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s true. She was the foundation of his fortune, right enough. \u2018Course, she ruined him too.\u201d Hank leaned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9,42],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blasts-from-the-past","tag-humor","tag-story"],"yoast_head":"\n