The Lure of Carney Row

Every year in August the Chemung County Fair would arrive in Horseheads, NY. While we were not die-hard 4H’ers or Junior Jaycees, we would make our way to the Midway each year to take in the sights and the smells of the fair. Quite an alluring place a county fair. Little alleyways lined with booths to entice the passerby. It doesn’t matter how disciplined or self- controlled you were, something along “carney row” would beckon and call to you.

Name your pleasure. Deep fried waffles, corn dogs, Italian sausages, cotton candy, salt water taffy, caramel corn, elephant ears, French fries and vinegar. (It seems that the county fair is the only place people ever eat their fries with vinegar. I’ve never seen anyone in a restaurant or under the Golden Arches ask for vinegar for their fries.)

Turn the corner and a row of “Games of Skill” were lined up each with a hawker calling you to take a chance. There were wooden bottles, the baskets for the softball touch, the revolving spiral with the metal ring to be removed without touching the rod. Dart games, water pistol games, horse-racing tic-tac-toe games. Floating ducks. A penny toss, nickel toss and a quarter toss. (I never saw a dime toss. The price seemed to jump from a nickel to a quarter. Maybe dimes are just too light for effective carney tossing.)

Carneys were always willing to show you how easy it was to beat the game so that you felt like a fool if you didn’t play. Then if you did play and lost, which most of us did, you could walk away and feel like a loser for failing to win such an easy game. To make it worse there were always the few scattered lucky ones who actually won the five-foot orange gorilla or the dog larger than a twin-sized bed.
Around the next corner more of the same. Food rows and game rows. Food rows and game rows. All decorated and painted and at night they were lit up better than the average Christmas display. Everything about the displays was designed to lure us to spend some money on either a tasty delight or a game of chance.

I don’t know what people are looking for when they go to a county fair, but I’m pretty sure it is not an orange gorilla. I don’t think that anyone goes to a county fair and believes that the $6 Italian sausage they have to fight the flies for is a great bargain. I don’t think anyone actually finds what they are looking for at a county fair except maybe for those individuals showing and selling their goats and sheep and cows and pigs. I think most of us go the fair because it comes to town, and not having anything else to do one night, we just show up and discover we’re still a sucker for games of chance and an ove-rpriced sandwich.

County fairs remind me of life. When I lack purpose, mission and drive, I’m easily distracted by the lights and temptation of so many things all around me. They seem compelling, alluring, desirable, a sure thing to satisfaction. But I’ve been to too many county fairs. Who needs a five- foot orange gorilla?

The Forgiver promised abundant life. It will be found in a relationship with Him that gives of worth, meaning and purpose not in the carney rows beckoning all around me.