SHE WALKS, SHE TALKS, SHE WIGGLES ON HER BELLY LIKE A REPTILE!: PART II

As children, our summers were measured by the arrival and departure of the county fair. We looked forward to it as the high point of summer freedom, and its departure brought that abrupt and unsettling realization that school would be starting in three weeks. The slow days took on an immediate nervous impatience. Summer was, for all good purposes, over.

The fair came in by train, screeching and halting, while whole families waited to meet it, leaning on their cars, listening for the whistle, imagining elephants and cotton candy and carousels.

In the decades before I was born, the carnies would rent rooms from the townspeople, staying with the same family year after year. My grandmother would "put up" fair folks, who brought money and a certain bawdy glamour to the town for ten hot August days each summer.

Held in especially high regard were the showgirls. The wives tolerated them, the men ogled them and there was a huge parade to welcome them. The floats were enormous islands of shifting puffiness, and poised and relaxed on top, one hand waving at the men whistling from the sidewalks of Main Street and the other casually steadying themselves, were the showgirls.