Hello again, I hope you are doing your best to find solutions that help you succeed in your own goals.
Most of you know that I grew up in a family of carnival owners and helped operate the family’s traveling show for years as an adult.
And some of you know that we were never really successful at it. At best we had eight rides, four games, and a cotton candy wagon.
Unfortunately, being based in Texas meant having to compete with many larger carnivals for bookings. So, we did just about anything to cobble together a calendar full of events where we could show a profit.
One way we did this was to rent our rides. We even had a standard package. They could get all our rides for a weekend for $6,000. And to sweeten the pot we would pay them twenty percent of the proceeds from the games or food if they let us set those up at the event.
The story I’m thinking of came when we were working a reunion in Burton Texas that always happened the same week as The June Teenth Celebration.
We provided the rides for them for several years. And they had let us set up our games. But given the number of people that showed up; our games never really made much money.
One year my dad got the idea to book our games at a festival going on in a neighboring town. He knew the carnival owner, and we booked our games with them for that week.
Now, besides not having a lot of rides; we rarely had much help either. Most weeks I helped set up and take down the rides.
In fact, we had one ride that they needed me there to set it up at all. It was a Schiff roller coaster. Not a huge coaster by any means.
Its dimensions were seventy five feet across the front, forty five feet deep with a highest point of about fifteen feet.
It had eighteen sections of track, and each of them were heavy suckers. They were supposed to take four people to carry, two on each side.
Being a big strong young man I would carry one side by myself. I would grab a piece of track in my left hand, lift it up, and carry it to the place it was meant to go. Which wasn’t hard because all I had to do was follow the guy in front of me.
People would ask why I only lifted with the one arm. I would tell them it wasn’t because I wanted to show off. It was simply that lifting it that way put less strain on my back and allowed me to walk forwards naturally instead of having to sidestep the whole way.
This week in Burton we had some trouble getting the water there hooked up. And setting up that coaster meant getting greasy. Setting it up in the heat and humidity meant I would get the grease all over me wiping sweat off while working.
I finished helping them set up the roller coaster, and then my dad drove me over to the next town. I had grease and sweat all over me. If I had opened my kids game that way, I’m sure I would have scared off all the mommies and daddies.
We had a trailer at the other lot, and it had water hooked up to it; but I didn’t have time for a bath or a shower.
What I did was to use a product called Gojo to get the grease off of me. Being pressed for time the point was to look just good enough to get open. So, I wiped the grease and sweat off of my face, hands, and arms. Then I put on a clean shirt and pair of pants. Basically, I cleaned everything that would show above my clothes.
I made opening with my kiddie high striker game, and I had a heck of an opening night. Our other games didn’t do too badly that weekend either. The next year a different carnival owner had the contract for that other fair, so we only did this once.
Just wanted to share this to show some of the things we did back when I was a carnie.
I have shared in many interviews how growing up in this business taught me to find solutions and overcome setbacks. Because in the carnival business the only thing that matters is being open on Thursday or Friday night so the towns folk can ride the Ferris wheel, buy a funnel cake, or try to win a stuffed animal.
Over the years we did lots of difficult, disgusting, sometimes even stupid things to make opening. We were always safe, but not always ready for prime time.
I have also shared often about how we didn’t always win many style points. We pulled together as a family in an incredibly challenging business against tough competition for over twenty years before my dad’s death lead to the closure of our small traveling show.
And memories like these have helped me a lot in my work as an online equipment broker and now as an author, blogger, speaker, accessibility advisor, and host of What’s Your Excuse.
I believe that you two have been through hard times. I just know that you have overcome things big and or small. I’m writing this to encourage you to think about those past successes and use them to carry through today’s hard times.
Play those great memories in your mind, and think heck this ain’t nothing compared to what I’ve already been through and come through. And I really want to hear some of your stories.
Until next time take care out there, Max