CarnivalMidways.Com

by Liz Reyna – Lansing City Pulse

At the Ingham County Fair, it´s easy to be intimidated.

With the array of faces behind booths beckoning you to throw this, or fish for this or take a shot at that, it’s like walking through a foreign bazaar.

And, it’s easy to envision the hawkers behind the booths as a stereotype: the modern American gypsy, the “carnie,” who is portrayed in movies, TV and folklore as freakish and scary. But talking to carnival workers at the fairgrounds in Mason last Saturday, those stereotypes were knocked down like a stack of vintage pop bottles with an air gun.

Carnival workers, like Joseph Bray of Jackson, are just doing their job.

Tossing a softball in front of the “Ball Buster” game, Bray, 18, plans to travel on the road with the carnival. He had only four days on the job.

“I was searching for a job,” he said. “I needed money to try to pay for college, so I decided to just call up and give it a shot. I love this job. It’s more fun than any other job I’ve had and it’s definitely made me want to go to a lot more fairs, too.”

As a newcomer, Bray was assigned a game. But 20-year carnival veteran Dennis Hamm got first pick. Watching him in front of the “1-in-you-win” basketball game, it’s clear why.

“Basketball! Come on in! Everybody wins today!” he yells at passersby. “Take your time aim right for it, get it on this wall, and you get any one of these prizes, honey. Bears, pigs, balls, cats, pandas!”

Hamm got his start in 1989 in Reno, Nev. When the carnival came to town, he jumped on and never looked back.

“It’s part of my lifestyle. I enjoy the kids, I enjoy the crowds and I like smiles,” he said. “It’s all family and it’s business.”

“When I started, I started out on the rides,” Hamm said, who is also a pastor in Byron Center. “You slept in your own rides. I was in a Gravitron. You could shut the door down on it. (We had) our stuff on the back deck, we’d fill up water buckets with hot water and got washed up. It was just like I thought it would be.”

These days, Hamm has a lot of stories to tell. He recalled an incident at the New York State Fair in the late 1990s when a tornado devastated the carnival, killing two.

“I could write a book, honey, I’ve seen almost everything you could imagine,” he said.

Pedaling down the fairway through a crowd, “Mike” and his giant yellow tricycle speaks in rhyme to children passing by.

“You’re as smart as can be and you’re going to make straight A’s at the university,” he rhymed.

Mike’s real name is Jim Herrington, and has been fair performer since 1981.

“I actually started performing to get over the bad vibes of Vietnam,” Herrington, 60, said. “I started singing in the streets waiting for my college G.I. bill money to come through. And so I performed in the streets until I joined with the fair.”

After a stint at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, he came back to Michigan, where his family is from.

Herrington also performs as “Pa Caboodle” in his show, the Caboodlestoppers, with his family, often on stilts. Traveling around sky-high, Herrington is far from the carnival stereotype.

“I like to relate positively with people, make rhymes about the kids, and make jokes,” he said. “We have enough in life that’s tearing people down. I like to be the person who builds them up.”

By CHRISTINA GUENTHNER – Argus-Press

The family behind the carnival rides at the Shiawassee County Fair knows the business well – they have been involved with it for more than 150 years.

Now owned by the fifth generation, Skerbeck Brothers Shows has roots all the way back to 1857 when the Frank Skerbeck family decided to trade their linen factory for a circus in Aussig, Bohemia.

After some time, Frank’s son – also named Frank – ended up touring as a circus performer in America during the 1870s with P.T. Barnum’s show before immigrating in 1880 and settling in Wisconsin. He started a circus with his family there in 1882, touring the Midwest in the 1880-90s.

Frank Skerbeck attended the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, where he saw a new innovation, the Ferris Wheel.

“This tremendous mechanical invention directly led to the birth of the American carnival,” according to family history.

Because of what he saw, Frank bought his first merry-go-round in 1897 and began to transition his business from the traditional circus to a carnival.

Frank’s son Joe Skerbeck operated wild west shows, medicine shows and traveling attractions of all types. By 1908, he joined his father in the carnival business.

Joe’s children, Eugene and Pauline Skerbeck, took over the ownership of the show in 1952, and operated it as Skerbeck Amusement Company until 1971.

Eugene’s sons, Joe and Bill Skerbeck, took over ownership in 1972 and have operated it as Skerbeck Brothers Shows since that time.

“Since 1972, the show has more than doubled in size through acquisition and growth,” family history says.

Today, the carnival has two units that travel mostly across Michigan, sometimes venturing into northern Indiana. Joe Skerbeck heads one up, and Bill Skerbeck and his wife C.J. are in charge of the other, which will be traveling to the Shiawassee County Fairgrounds.

The sixth generation is already involved in the show and on the road. Bill’s son Dustin Skerbeck, 23, graduated from Northern Michigan University and is now the maintenance and rides supervisor. Dustin’s wife, Cindy, is the food concessions manager. Bill’s daughter, Carly Skerbeck, 21, attends NMU but works in game concessions during the summer.

Bill’s mother, Arlene Altenburg, and her sister-in-law, Cheryl Kedrowicz, both work in the office at the carnival. Arlene, now 80, has been on the road with the show since she was 14 years old.

Arlene’s brother Norb Kedrowicz also is the safety manager for the carnival group traveling to Shiawassee County.

Between both touring units, the family has at least 16 members involved in the business at this time.

Most of the family involved in the show spends about six months of the year on the road and the other six months in the Escanaba area, performing maintenance and preparing for the next carnival season.

Joe Skerbeck’s daughter-in-law, Sonja Skerbeck, said it has been interesting to see the business grow and develop over the years.

“We’ve seen the organization increase substantially in terms of the events that we do each year,” she said.

Weather plays a big role in how successful each event is.

“It’s show business,” she said. “You hope for the best, that’s not always how it goes. … But, we’ve been managing to pull it off for the last 150 years.”

And the constant change in scenery keeps things going.

“We throw a party for a lot of people every week,” Sonja said.

KAHRIN DEINES Of The Gazette Staff

Some of the carnies visiting town for the Montana Fair have a new hobby: knitting hats for babies and neck-warmers for soldiers.

Self-titled the Itty Bitty Knitting Committee, the group gathers to share stitching knowledge and enjoy each others’ company in the months they are away from home.

“The carnival is pretty much a melting pot, but I would not normally be sitting down socially with most of these girls, so this brings us together,” said Margaret Atkins, one of the third-generation owners of The Mighty Thomas Carnival.

At Atkins’ urging, the group of about 15 food vendors, game operators and others began meeting to learn how to knit in May.

“It’s a difficult thing to learn because you drop stitches and make mistakes and so this gives them a support group,” said Atkins, who picked up knitting needles again when her first grandchild was on the way five years ago.

It wasn’t until she had lost two grandchildren, though, that she decided to start sharing the craft with carnival employees.

Atkins, 62, spent last winter knitting miniature booties for premature babies. The work offered therapy after her daughter’s premature twins died about 15 months ago. An anonymous knitter had left little booties for them when they were still alive.

“I’ve found that when you make things for people, you think about them,” Atkins said.

Despite days that often run 12 hours or more, the new carnival knitters have managed since May to knit 65 miniature hats for premature babies that they are now donating to Billings Clinic. And for their next group project, they are knitting wool neck-warmers for soldiers in Afghanistan.

“It’s very relaxing and after a stressful day it’s really nice,” said Laura Miller, a 31-year-old Billings native who joined the carnival 13 years ago.

Through the knitting group, Miller has also made her 3-year-old son a scarf and a blanket, and she has quit smoking cigarettes.

“It’s helped me,” Miller said. “It gives me something to do with my hands.”

While the meditative repetition of stitching row upon row can be a welcome release from the hard work of carnival life, the projects are also a chance to learn how to keep going when things don’t go well, Atkins said.

“Sometimes in your life you can’t fix your mistakes, but this is a process where you can,” she said. “I think that’s been good for some of them. Maybe they’ve never been challenged to make it as good as they can.”

By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ – ABC NEWS Business Unit

State fair season is beginning and, for many, that means one thing: food. Lots and lots of food, often deep fried, on a stick or deep fried and on a stick.

Can you say fried pineapple on a stick? Or pork chop on a stick? Or, even more perplexing, salad on a stick? Then there’s deep-fried Milky Way bar on a stick, meatball on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a stick and don’t forget about the fried pickle on a stick.

It seems like everything at the fair just tastes better on a stick.

Click Here for Photos of State Fair Food Favorites

Fair-goers from Iowa to Texas to Minnesota marvel each year at the various concoctions, returning to old favorites and trying new treats.

This year at the 158th Wisconsin State Fair, for instance, all the hype is about chocolate-covered bacon.

It has been a runaway hit, selling 7,000 slices — unexpectedly — in the first day of the fair Thursday. Teams now are working through the night to ensure that there is enough bacon for the fair with nearly 100,000 slices expected to be sold by the end of the 10-day event.

“You get a little bit of the sweet and you get a little bit of the saltiness. So you mix those two loves together and that’s where chocolate bacon came from,” said Jessica Deeg of The Machine Shed restaurant in Pewaukee, Wis., the maker of the treat. “It’s a craze around here and it’s awesome.”

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, it is served on a stick.

So what are the top foods at this year’s fairs? ABC News scoured the country and came up with our own list of top favorites. Feel free to add your favorites to the comment section below.

1. Caramel Apples

2. Belgian Waffle on a stick

3. Deep-Fried Oreo Cookies

4. Corn Dogs

5. Frozen Coffee On a Stick

6. Cotton Candy

7. Funnel Cake

8. Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

9. Deep-Fried Norwegian Banana Split

10. Open-Faced Grilled Spam Sandwich

Read More >>

Elizabeth Ayres – Herald-Citizen Staff

COOKEVILLE — People are more likely to remember the carnival rides or the candied apples over any people they may meet at the fair. The faces change every so often, as do the rides, but some things are constant: the husband-and-wife team of Jerry and Joanna Geren, who bring the fair to town every year; their adorable Dashchund Minnie, with her sparkly, monogrammed collar; and Joanna’s “traveling garden,” pots of flowers and vegetables that line the walkway to the Gerens’ office trailer in the middle of the Putnam County Fairgrounds.

Geren Rides is a family business in every way. The family’s affiliation with the midway began when Jerry’s father ran away from home many years ago. “He joined the carnival,” Jerry said. “A lady that had a food booth more or less took him in, fed him and gave him a place to sleep, and he did whatever it took to make ends meet.”

For years, the business has been run by Jerry and his wife, who was a dental assistant before she married her husband more than 50 years ago. “My parents said, ‘Uh-oh!’” said Joanna when asked of her parents’ reaction to marrying a midway man. “Really, they just wanted me to be happy.” “I told her, ‘We aren’t going to be like normal people, where I go one way and you go the other and we meet up later. We are going to be around each other 24 hours a day,’” Jerry said.

“He’s 75 and he’s never had another job but this, so we’ve been around for a long time,” Joanna said. “I’ve looked at him for over 50 years, and I still enjoy looking at him.” The Gerens pride themselves on running a family-friendly business, which she explained is par for the course when your own family is on the road with you the majority of the year. “Midway families tend to be real close. You’re family is right here with you,” Joanna said. “As soon as they’re old enough, they start having responsibilities. They’re taught to work. And traveling from town to town, they tend to learn real quick.”

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