Eureka Memories: Carnival atmosphere all summer, every summer

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Butler Amusements was to Eureka kids in the 1960s what Nintendo is to youngsters of today.

Butler Amusements was the outfit that operated and, I assume maintained, the rides and attractions at the dozen or so carnivals that popped up in Eureka every spring and summer for decades.

Well, there were likely other carnival crews that set up at the Redwood Acres Fairgrounds, the parking lot at what was Disco before it became Bazaar before it morphed into Beno's and Pay Less before it became "that county office building on Highway 101 headed toward Arcata."

Butler Amusements is the only name that springs to mind, however.

Carnivals popped up in empty lots, too. Whenever a carnival hit town, it was an attraction. When my kids and I see carnival workers who look like escapees from a prison road crew piecing together the Ferris wheel and pint-sized roller coaster at the Westfield Mall in Fairfield, they ask things like, "Who would ever go ride those rides? They're not fast. They just spin in circles and ..."

I used to interrupt my older sons when they'd go off on the inherent stupidity they perceived to be involved in enjoying two-bit carnival rides.

I'd tell them about how my mom would take me to the carnivals in Eureka all the time to ride the rides, play the games and eat cotton candy. Mostly, as I recall, to eat the cotton candy, the popcorn, ice cream and to drink the most sugary soda a fat kid who lived for such delicacies could ever imagine.

There's no real way to make a little carnival interesting to kids who'd spent the morning playing life-like video games on a 64-inch, high-definition television. There was little to be said for spinning in tight circles for three minutes on some sort of whirly gig ride when the kids can entertain themselves with a mind-boggling, rockin' stereo sound system that fits in the palm of their hand.

The carnivals like the one that used to set up in a vacant lot on Broadway, headed out of Eureka to the south, were exotic and entertaining to us. Of course, we also got all geeked up to buy a vinyl LP with 3 "Herman's Hermits" hits and 7 or 8 intolerable tunes by the same group. Most of us thought the world started spinning backward briefly when we got our hands on a circular piece of vinyl with two Elvis Presley songs on it.

My kids make their own music collections on their space-age, hand-held sound systems. They'll never listen to "Meet The Beatles," and suddenly wince, "Why is Paul singing 'Till There Was You,' on here! That song's from 'The Music Man.' "

If we'd had iPods, we'd never even have been exposed to the music Col. Tom Parker forced Elvis to sing in those fer-schnizzly bad movies The King made to avoid competiting for radio air time with the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys in the 1960s. (I did like "Follow That Dream," however.)

The dozen or so Eureka carnivals were exciting because ... there wasn't much to do in Eureka so we all turned out for every carnival. In Eureka's heyday, we made nothing into something because it seemed that we all did it together.

The carnival that was part of the Redwood Acres Fair every June was better than the carnival in the Bazaar parking lot because there were thousands of us at Redwood Acres.

The Humboldt County Fair carnival was the best, for people who enjoy bigger, better rides, than the carnival in the vacant lot on Broadway. More people meant more friends and more fun and ... there was an exotic selection of food in Ferndale. Give me a chance to eat a dog on a stick and follow it with pink popcorn and an ice cream swirl and I'd forget the rides. After the merry go round ended, it wasn't a long walk to the exhibit hall where they were selling homemade cookies.

This carnival that sets up in my new town is ... empty. The only thing more depressing that all the carnival lights and the roaring heavy metal music blaring into the night two blocks from Macy's is the sight of 6 or 7 teenagers wandering aimlessly and alone inside the carnival gates.

We had to line up behind more than 6 or 7 kids to even take a shot at throwing ping pong balls trying to land one in a goldfish bowl to win the goldfish inside. (Most traumatic existence, all-time, ever: Goldfish who lived in a carnival gold fish bowl.)

We could've bought a goldfish at Fin N' Feather for a quarter. But, we'd spend over a buck to stand for a half hour trying to bounce a ping pong ball into a fish bowl filled with water. If we did win the fish, we'd bitch and moan about having to carry it around the carnival.

Every game was rigged. I'm certain my mom, all parents, knew that. They didn't tell us, all the time. It seems like each of my friends and I individually figured out how different games were fixed to make it near impossible to win, but we did it over years and on our own. If our parents said, "You can't really win that game ... " we'd have just argued.

We threw darts at under-inflated balloons that were impossible to pop. Then, when we did pop a balloon, we'd learn that the accomplishment meant we didn't win one of the many colorful stuffed animals, but rather bought us a chance to pop 2 more balloons to win ... a 3-inch tall stuffed tucan.

The sounds of the carnival distracted us from the games that, really, almost nobody could win. I was a baseball player. I could do nothing if not throw a ball straight and hard, hitting whatever target was placed before me. When my mom tried to talk me out of taking 50 cents to try to knock down milk jugs, I completely ignored her.

"I throw strikes mom!"

The logic of a 9-year-old Cutten League baseball pitcher.

The music, the laughter, the screams from teens riding what seemed to be death-defying rides hadn't given me a chance to pause and watch how the game with the milk jugs worked. So, when I finally got to the front of the line I had talked myself into really wanting a big, stuffed, brown monkey. Really! I wanted that monkey!

When the carny reached down under the counter that separated me from the milk jugs and came up with three, heavy, old, 16-inch softballs ... I died a little on the inside. Heck, I could throw any kind of baseball straight. But ... gee whiz ...

I couldn't even get my hand around a softball 16 inches in circumference. I was too young to even know what circumference meant so I just turned to my mom, with my wee, chubby hands grasping the huge, heavy ball.

"Dammit! See? Next time you'll listen to me!"

Well, I wouldn't actually listen, but I wouldn't knock down those jugs with those monster softball balls either.

The games got easier when we got older and understood how to beat them ... er, understood when we had a chance to beat them. I figured out the dart game angle. One of my basketball-star buddies figured out how to shoot lopsided basketballs through a hoop that a ball could barely fit through that was atop a 13-foot high pole. (A regular basketball hoops fits a basketball and has plenty of room the spare. Honest.)

We were even able as we aged to ignore the sleazy barkers who would say anything to get us to stop and try the games.

When I started double-dating at carnivals, my Becoming A Man card was always at risk. Karen liked the rides ... all the rides. I hated spinning in fast circles. I didn't like going high off the ground. I never got sick to my stomach when I was a tub o' goo waddling around from food seller to food seller. I'd become nauseous the minute I saw the Tilt-a-Whirl.

I had to make sure that I performed with some measure of grace as we'd stroll past the barkers. By the time I was 15, at the carnival with a girl I wanted to impress, I always envisioned this to be the ideal interaction with a carnival barker:

Barker: "Hey! Mr. Letterman's sweater! Afraid you can't knock down the milk jugs in front'a yer girl? She wants a pretty stuffed animal, right? You afraid to win her one?

Me: "Shut the f$#@ up! Nice fingernails, by the way."

The attraction to the girl who, through sheer coincidence wound up being my only date to any carnival ever, was that she didn't care if I won the stuffed animal. She, inexplicably, liked hanging around with me and accepted I was a gigantic candy ass. So, before every carnival, I also envisioned responding something like this:

Me: "Look ... you sit in yer trailer with 5 other guys every night getting drunk, but I'm going home with her because she likes ME! Take that 10-cent stuffed giraffe and stick it up yer ..."

Whoops! Sorry. I fogot. Every memory about everything from my youth is golden...warm and fuzzy...loved those glorious Eureka carnivals. Loved them!

II'd waste time pointing out to Karen, her brother Berk and his date Merijean, that there was simply no way those carnival rides could be safe. I gave the same speech about stoned carneys using unsafe equipment to put together a big wheel that was going to take them around and around in a giant circle 60 feet off the ground.

"Good luck with that! Count me out!"

My friends laughed and went on the ride.

It wasn't as easy to maneuver the carnival when I ran with my pack of boyhood buddies. If one guy wanted to ride, oh, the Tilt-A-Whirl ... we rode it. I'd make it clear I hated the Tilt-A-Whirl, but I'd go on it.

There was a measure of pride to be maintained in the pack. Conversely, there was a measure of grace for a young girl to attach to a sensitive boy willing to admit he was afraid of the rides.

The carney's were not to be trusted. I knew that. Nobody believed me.

At Redwood Acres, when we were in ninth grade, we had a particular blast on the Tilt-A-Whirl because a bunch of cute girls had gone on and paid attention to us. I'm sure a march across frozen tundra would've been a blast in 1970 if pretty girls paid attention to us in the process.

I even forgot that wave of nausea that hit me just looking at people in a half-shell shaped seat that spun in circles on a big, wooden platform that was also spinning in circles.

When kids went to carnivals in Eureka, where the same carnival workers would stop multiple times every summer, we got to know some of the workers. The guy running the Tilt-A-Whirl that night in ninth grade was a carney we loved to laugh about.

That became a point of concern after we'd riden the T-A-W five, six times and were entering for one final spin before closing time. We were ... ninth graders ... big swingin' doinks at Winship Junior High, baby! We'd actually talked to cute girls from Zane. We were bullet-proof when we loaded up, just the six of us, one last time.

Somebody, I don't know who, said something about the carney running the ride. The carney looked crestfallen, then he looked ... really angry. I gave him my ticket and he gave me a stink-eye to end all stink eyes. I realized this wasn't a teen blonde carney trying to talk 9-year-old Teddy into winning a goldfish.

I felt the carney literally slam the T-A-W gate against my rear end, hard, and stomp about to lock my pals into the ride. When he slammed that thing we held on to into my lap, he did so with malice aforethought. My ride-mate Dave Lovfald was a good dude. Quiet. Unassuming. He likely didn't see the fear in my eyes.

The guy cranked up the Tilt-A-Whirl. No music. Something was wrong. There had been music all night. We were going faster, too. I started to tell Lovfald that we're supposed to start slow, then speed up and ... he had his head back with his eyes closed.

Somebody in our crew shouted, "Is this as fast as this thing goes? C'mon, buddy!"

The carney was in my line of sight and his eyes narrowed. He pushed down on one button and pushed forward on what appeared to be a gear shift to his right.

We started spinning faster and harder and in more erratic circles than I imagined a two-bit carnival ride could ... I threw up a little in my mouth. Nice.

I hung on tight. Lovfald woke up. A group of older kids stopped by the Ferris wheel and were just watching us spin out of control. A voice came from another friend and I shouted, "Shut the f^%%$ up! Shuddup!"

My friend apparently didn't realize we were at the mercy of the carney who we'd pissed off on the way into the ride and then angered further by challenging his willingness to crank the ride to warp speed.

There was quite a crowd of people around by the time we got off the ride, dizzy, dazed, confused. It tended to attract a crowd when the Tilt-A-Whirl man let one group of riders go out of control for 10 minutes. Still ... still ... one of my friends said something to the carney on the way out ... we weren't necessarily all that self-aware at age 14.

Me? I just wanted to puke. But, we still had to find a phone to call for a ride and ... the nearest pay phone was a long walk west on Harris Street to the Safeway at the corner of Harris and Harrison. I remember nothing, nothing, but driving home in Jerry McKeown's Oldsmobile station wagon with my head hanging out the window.

Mrs. McKeown shouted, "Oh, Ted ... I don't want you throwing up in my car!"

I wasn't thrilled at the idea either.

"So, you boys have fun? We always had so much fun at the carnival when you kids were little!"

Mrs. McKeown was insufferably upbeat, which made her lovable.

"Teddy, you win anything?"

On that night, I didn't bother to explain that the games were rigged. I just took slow deep breaths out the window.

"We don't play games much," was all I could manage.

"These carnivals ... I loved going to them with my girlfriends when we were little."

Oh. OK. I loved them when I was a kid, too. As a teen, I rethought the love of the carnivals that marked the beginning, middle and end of summer in Eureka for decades.