grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Carnival Sideshow Oddities. Then and Now.

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Step right up folks! What I’m about to describe will shock and amaze you. Remember the sideshow freaks at the carnival? Living Frog Boy, Magical Fire-Eater, Atasha the Gorilla Girl… I grew up during that wonderful time before political incorrectness when human oddities were the main attraction rather than the norm. 

Every year Momma and Aunt Lavern took my sister, cousin and me to the Mid-South Fair in Memphis. Every year we made a beeline for the freakshow tent.  
One year in particular we spent half an hour staring at the Alligator Woman. She was old and wrinkled and covered chin to toe in tattoos which made her look downright reptilian. Multiple tattoos? Unheard of beyond the fantastic carnival world.

In the next tent, the World’s Largest Man lounged with rolls of naked flesh spilling around the room a la Jabba the Hutt. We stared. I couldn’t eat my corn dog. Finally Aunt Lavern broke the awkward silence. So, tell us what you eat for breakfast? He recited his daily menu of a dozen eggs, two pounds of bacon, a loaf of bread, a jar of grape jelly. Mortified, I dropped my corn dog in the sawdust-covered floor. Today Jabba could get his own realty television show or at least fifteen minutes with Dr. Oz.

Ahhhh the good old days…
Before our very eyes, the sideshow has morphed into display booths where people peddle wares including the latest choppers and grinders and slicers and dicers you didn’t know you needed. How on earth have humans cooked all these years without a tool guaranteed to provide hours of delight while magically transforming radishes into flowers? 
Take a seat in the corner booth and straighten your frizzy humid Dallas mane using the latest hair gadgets as seen in Elle Magazine…
And in another booth at the State Fair of Texas…don’t miss out on the latest snake oil…a free Botox injection. Seriously. Botox handed out like Girl Scout cookie samples.
Sadly, for the same outrageous cost as a funnel cake, our only organized sideshow option is wedged between the kiddie rides and candied apples—the world’s smallest turtle and his cousin the albino. Who cares! Bring back Dickie the Penguin Man. If you want turtles to draw a crowd at the fair today, you’d have to serve ’em chicken fried with a side of cream gravy. Then the line would circle Big Tex. 
Sideshow Freakshow
talya
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
Musical Pairing:
Verne Langdon’s Carnival of Souls

Munger Place Days: The Morning After…

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Do you remember the ‘morning after’ scene from the movie Big when Josh (who grew into Tom Hanks while he slept) returned to the park looking for the Zoltar machine?

The midway had disappeared.

The rides had been disassembled and moved elsewhere.

Zoltar vanished overnight.

The only evidence of a recent carnival was litter scattered by the wind, a something-wicked-this-way-comes sort of wind.

That’s how I felt the morning after Munger Place Days. Not that there was an eerie feeling, or that I felt any ‘bigger’ than normal, but a strange, empty sensation filled the air.
The food trucks and art vendors were gone. Regular Monday morning traffic noise replaced the live music and energy that charged the streets only hours before. Like the build up to all exciting and anticipated things, I felt a bit of let down. Or maybe it was a sigh of relief.
Even days later, our neighborhood still bears faint signs of the weekend as sidewalk chalk slowly fades into the concrete.
We had no Zoltar machine at Munger Place Days, but had we, I might have wished to be little again. If only for a few days.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Heart and Soul, FAO Schwarz Piano, Big

A letter from Junius Peak

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Throwback Thursday…

The name Peak is likely familiar to East Dallas residents. But even if you aren’t an East Dallasite, the letter below is a fascinating part of American history.
Junius, fought as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, served as Dallas City Marshall 1874-1876, and as 2nd Lieutenant for the Texas Rangers in 1878.
The following oral history was dictated by Junius Peak to the Frontier Times (Bandera, Tx) on August 6, 1927 (presented without editing)…
Junius Peak

I was born at Warsaw, Kentucky,  April 5, 1845. Moved with the family in 1855 to Dallas, Texas, which we reached on June 10th of that year. We were soon comfortably located in a good 2-room log house, with a fine well of water, etc.
     Shortly after our arrival in Dallas, father bought 229 acres of fine land two miles East of the Dallas County court house, paying $110.00 cash on this land. My father at once began building the first brick house in Dallas County for his house, and in which he died.
     The early part of April, 1878, I was commissioned by the Governor as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Texas Frontier Battalion for the purpose of destroying the Sam Bass gang of train robbers, and was promoted to Captain in May following.
     By July of that year I had succeeded in disposing of the entire band, excepting Bass, Barnes and Jackson, driving these out of North Texas into the trap arranged by Major John B. Jones at Round Rock. I was immediately ordered to the Frontier where I found the Indians very active, especially in 1879.
     A detachment of seven Rangers from my Company, on the 20th day of June and 2nd day of July had the last two engagements with Comanche and Kiowa Indians on the Texas frontier, at the head of the North Concho River and on the Plains 80 miles West, where Ranger Anglin was killed and the two pack mules lost on June 28th recovered.
     Please mail me 20 copies of your September issue, with bill for same enclosed.

     Sincerely yours,

     June Peak
     4409 Worth Street, Dallas

***
Note: As the unofficial keeper of historical records and photos for Munger Place Historic District, I hope to periodically share information related to Texas history and specifically East Dallas. These photos and glimpses into bygone days are invaluable.  As Winston Churchill said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” 

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!