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…

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. 

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening