Joining the Carnival 101

I Didn’t Know This Existed Five Minutes Ago, But Now I Must Have It!

In early spring 1987, I had just finished a year of upgrading at Red Deer College.  I went down to the Hire-A-Student hoping to find something to do for the summer.  In those days, Hire-A-Student was set up just like the Unemployment Office, with the free-standing job boards with rows of yellow cards of hope, prosperity and minimum wage.  One job per card.  The Hire-a-Student office would open in mid-spring to provide some early-bird postings for college students, but the bulk of the jobs came out for July and August, for the high-school students.

I scanned the scant few cards that were already posted, feeling my customary nausea at the fast food and child care “opportunities”.  One card caught my attention: “Traveling Concession.  Mobile food preparation and delivery”.  The cards were irritatingly vague, of course.  They couldn’t have someone subverting their process and going straight to the employer, so they had to be vague enough that you couldn’t guess the employer.  But, after reading several hundred of them, you could start to read between the lines and at least make a decent guess as to what the posting might actually be.  I decided it was probably a job driving one of the Red Rooster trucks that made the rounds every day bringing coffee and sandwiches to the working men on job sites around town.  I liked driving.  I also liked working men.  I scribbled the job posting number down on one of the small pieces of paper provided with one of the small pencils (also provided) and walked to the counter to wait to speak with one of the job counselors. 

I stood alone – a line of one, pretending to be patient, while each counselor pretended to be busy.  After a few minutes, one of them broke down and worked me into his busy schedule, taking me back to his desk and pulling out the card describing the job opportunity which matched the number I’d written down.  Brinks Concession, based in Innisfail, a traveling Crepe Shop which followed the carnival circuit for the summer season, traveling to cities throughout Canada working at their summer fairs. 

Well well well.  No sooner were those words out of his mouth than I wanted nothing more in the world than to have that job… that adventure… be my summer.  I had been longing to escape from little-city Red Deer for as long as I could remember and this sounded like about the most amazing and exciting opportunity I could fathom.   

To me, life in Red Deer was sort of like my Grade 4 science class.  Day after day the teacher instructed us to turn to page 52, which was the first page of the chapter on mammals, with a drawing of a deer.  Day after day she discussed the same material that she had discussed the day before.  Day after day; week after week; page 52.  Always page 52.  I yearned to move on.  Cover new material!  Read page 53 and page 54 and page 55, and I did – surreptitiously – while pretending to focus on page 52.  Every day, I would wait expectantly (talk about unrequited optimism) for her to tell us to flip to another page, but every day, page 52. 

To me, life in Red Deer meant watching the “Welcome to Red Deer” population sign, wishing for the number, 32,000, to increase.  Even by 1.  I knew that sign well because when I was a child, we lived in a small disconnected neighborhood called Valley View out on the highway towards Sylvan Lake.  We often drove into Red Deer, and each time I would check the population sign, which always read 32,000.  Expectantly, and excitedly, each time I would check that sign, willing it to say 33,000.  32,500 even.  OK, I’d take 32,200.  But every time, 32,000. 

Longing for change, and longing for excitement –longing for page 53, or 32,200, or anything to happen, my friend, Laura Lee, and I had wiled away many an afternoon in the Granada Inn.  We smoked Du Maurier cigarettes, drank bad coffee and complained incessantly about how boring Red Deer was.  We dreamed about what it would be like to get away to someplace. 

Just about any place sounded more exciting than Red Deer.  A whole bunch of places across Canada was the most exciting idea I’d heard, well… ever!

Landing the Adventure Fish

The first thing I did was to phone Colin and Verity Brink.  I aced the interview since they hardly asked me any questions other than to confirm I was physically able to cook a crepe (as in, possessing, and having full motor control over, two arms and two hands) and willing to travel around for the summer.  Brinks Concession owned and operated an independent “Crepe Shop” concession that did the summer fair circuit alongside Thomas Shows (which, incidentally, provided the midway for Red Deer’s Westerner Days in mid-July). 

First, though, we would drive out to Brandon, Manitoba, to do an early fair with Conklin Shows before it was time to hook up with Thomas Shows for the rest of the summer.  We arranged to meet in Innisfail on Saturday, June 6^th, which would give us time to drive out to Brandon, and a day or two to get set up before the fair started on June 10^th. 

What was my mom thinking when I told my parents that I was going to go travel with the carnival for the summer?  Did it cross her mind to forbid me?  I don’t think so.  In 1987 a 20-year-old was… well… a grown up.  But she did try, a little, to talk me out of it.  She knew me well, though, and knew that trying to talk me out of something was akin to trying to talk paint out of drying.  She insisted on talking to the people I’d be working for to make sure… make sure… what?  That they didn’t have two heads?  Can you even tell that over the phone?  She also asked that I check in regularly by telephone, which I was quite happy to do.

Dear Abbey… I have two daughters.  One daughter is in the carnival concession business….

My dad didn’t say much, but before I left he handed me $200 cash.  He told me it was enough for a Greyhound ticket back to Red Deer from anywhere in Canada, and I was to hang onto it in case I needed it.  I kept it in a small pouch tied around my waist the whole summer.  It was the safety net I needed to overcome any fear I had about going away and getting trapped far from home.  I was very grateful for that, but I don’t think I was grateful enough to give it back to him when I got home safely without needing it.  Oops.

Traveling Light… uh… What?

I puzzled over what to take along.  I’d never lived out of a suitcase (or two) for three months before, and had been told in no uncertain terms that I was allowed to bring no more than two medium-sized suitcases (plus my bedding) along for the whole summer.  Space was tight and I would be sharing a small trailer with two other employees.  We would be required to wear Brinks Concession golf shirts every day to work, and aside from that were allowed to wear whatever we liked. 

I fretted about my hair.  I am having a bad hair life and getting my thin cow-licked hair to look the way I deemed acceptable took a great deal of finesse (and Finesse®).  I was not a hat person, but I bought a beige fedora with a purple hatband that actually looked ok on me and could hide my hair every time it was flat, stringy, poofy, or flippy.  I decided I had to take my hair dryer; otherwise not even my fedora could help me.  I also needed a certain amount of toiletries and make-up.  Lastly, I took along a large plug-in makeup mirror.  My, how things have changed.

Two suitcases, eh?  Fitting everything my 20-year-old self “needed” into two suitcases was a bit of a challenge.  All those hair and makeup items took up almost one whole suitcase, and the clothes that I “needed” would have easily filled a refrigerator box, but through deep and painful sacrifice, I managed to pare my needs down to two suitcases worth.