By James Carroll
Saturday, December 9, 2017
When I was about five years old, Bobbie and I went to the carnival. It was in warm weather and was at the old fair grounds at Tenth Street and Glen Addie Av. Bobbie was my first cousin and was about thirteen years old, she was pretty as she could be.
We walked around the midway a lot and did what you do at a carnival, but the thing that I remember so well was “The Bullet”. That thing would spin around and around and the centrifugal force would hold you to your seat. Bobbie peed her pants, not so much that it spoiled our day. If she were living today she might not want me to tell that but it wasn’t so bad.
Before we started home we counted our money and had enough for bus fair and a bag of popcorn. It cost 25 cents to ride the Greyhound bus the three miles to our home on Bankhead highway. Bobbie let me keep my bus fair and told me to be sure not to lose it. When we boarded the bus Bobbie ask me for the bus fair but I could not find it. The bus driver told Bobbie to look in the popcorn bag but it was so full of popcorn that she couldn’t find it. Bobbie told the driver that when we got off the bus in front of my dad’s store she would run and get the bus fair and that was fine with the driver.
When I ate all the popcorn I found the quarter in the bag just like the driver said. Of course I had to pay it back to the store for the loan.