Traveling Carnival News,Pictures and Videos.

Source: STEPHANIE JONES – The Journal Times

When Ronald Kedrowicz was 1, his parents bought a giant octopus ride.

The next year they bought a trolley train and a kiddy Ferris wheel.

By the time Kedrowicz, who goes by “Chip,” was 7, his family had enough rides that they started their own traveling carnival.

That was the start of Rainbow Valley Rides Inc., which is in Racine this week and which Kedrowicz, now 43, has traveled with every summer for his entire life, along with his family. Now his own wife and kids and his brother’s family have also joined the summer tour, which starts in May and runs through Labor Day.

The family lives in the Stevens Point area most of the year. Then throughout the summer the Kedrowicz family and approximately 45 workers travel all around the state for church festivals, carnivals and fairs. They set up their rides, food stands and games, and they have a new home for a week.

A child’s playground

Growing up traveling every summer to new cities was a new adventure, Kedrowicz, now president of Rainbow Valley Rides, said. His friends always thought of it as his own playground for the summer.

In each new town, there were new kids for him to play with and new places to see, which he explored with his siblings.

Being the bosses’ son also “came with some perks,” he said, like free rides and free caramel apples and snow cones.

Life as the boss

Now, more than 40 years after his parents bought their octopus ride, the excitement of the carnival business is still there

“Out here I can write a book,” Kedrowicz said. “There is always something going on.”

There is the occasional Russian barbeque courtesy of some of the workers who come over for the summer from overseas, he said. There is also the weather. When there is a tornado in the area, “you are just praying, because if you lose your show you are out of business.”

A family business

The excitement is not the only perk, so is the time spent with family, Kedrowicz said.

Behind Boston Store in Regency Mall, Kedrowicz’s mother was in the carnival’s office sitting working at her desk, and his brother, Joe, stood smiling at his 6-month-old daughter in his arms. His two sisters no longer tour with the carnival in the summer, but they help out sometimes, he said.

Kedrowicz’s four children, ages 13 to 10, are in school right now, and his mother-in-law is taking care of them.

Being on tour without the kids is hard this month, said Kedrowicz’s wife, Teri, who was working in the cotton candy stand Sunday. But as soon as they get out. they join the carnival and they all move into the family’s summer home – a 45-foot RV.

Home away from home

The RV looks like a normal home inside. There is bread on the counter, a towel hanging from the stove, a table set with four placemats and a few dog toys on the floor for the family’s two dogs.

When everyone is there, two of the kids sleep in twin beds in a back room, two sleep on a pull-out in the living room and Kedrowicz and his wife sleep in the master bedroom in the front of the trailer.

Next door are the RVs for Kedrowicz’s brother and his wife, and his parents’ RV. They all love traveling together and seeing each other, but don’t want to imagine everybody living in the same RV.

“We love each other, but not that much,” said his mother, Lorraine, 70.

In the 40 years since Kedrowicz’s parents bought that first octopus, the ride is no longer with the carnival. But Kedrowicz cannot imagine doing anything else with his summers.

“I don’t know any other life. I’ve never been home in the summer,” Kedrowicz said. “It gets in your blood.”

He still has many more years in the carnival business, and he said when his kids grow up, the option to join the business will be there. But he is not pushing them. “It’s up to them,” he said.

Source:Margaret Caldwell – The Desert Valley Times

Today I’ll write about my past — when I was really, really young. Our family had finally left the farm and moved to the small town of Ashley, Minnesota. My mother was trying to sell books by Billy Sunday and my father was not settled on what he would do. In fact, he was spending most of his time at my older sister’s house complaining and regretting his sale of the farm.

I was left in the care of my sister Abby who was supposedly going to high school, but there was no school during the summer so Abby took me down past the lumber mill where a traveling company had set up a merry-go-round and other booths.

My eyes bugged out at the sight of the gaily-colored ring of animals moving up and down. Abby left me there mesmerized. I don’t know where she went. Probably to see more of the booths.

I was about five years old.

I stood, probably with my finger in my mouth, until I felt a touch on my head and a kind voice said, “Would you like to ride?”

Before I could move the man motioned for the wheel to stop and then he put me up on a wooden horse and motioned for the wheel and the music to start again.

I was in heaven.

Think – the year was about 1912. What I’m telling you is true. The man who paid for my merry-go-round joy was a good-natured old gentleman who owned a lumberyard. He had seen my sister leave and wanted to make sure I was not abandoned.

Those days life was simple. People were kind. I remember it all and I thank God for the ability to bring the scene back to mind.

Today, a man would not dare to come near a child. He would be afraid he would be arrested for assault or attempted kidnapping.

I hate having to compare the simple past with what is happening today. I am not one of the old people who live in the past, but I understand why some do not want to see reality as it is today.

I’m sure Abby returned, because I got home to live the long life God has granted me.

Blessed be!

Margaret Caldwell, in her 104th year, is the world’s oldest newspaper columnist.

Source: By Chris Kaltenbach – The Baltimore Sun

Traveling carnivals take their midway rides on the road, delighting the kid in everyone

Karen Weber has spent some 15 years helping to run the spring carnival at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Essex. She knows what brings in the crowds — and it isn’t the food, or the goldfish toss, or even the chance to hang out with good friends while helping raise money for church and school.

Nah, what brings ‘em in are the rides: the Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds and other mechanical contraptions that lift you up and spin you around, defying gravity and turning the whole world happily upside-down.

“They’re the draw-er,” she says, inventing a word appropriate to the occasion as she helps get things ready for the annual event, set this year for the weekend of April 30. “Everybody comes by, and they see the bright lights and the rides going on — it’s the first thing they want to do.”

Nothing says vacation and summer sunshine and take-it-easy better than carnivals and the rides they bring to town with them. In Baltimore, the unofficial start of the 2010 carnival season may be the annual Spring Fair at the Johns Hopkins University, which takes over the Homewood campus beginning today. Almost every weekend, straight through to Labor Day and beyond, there’ll be a carnival of some kind set up somewhere — on mall parking lots, alongside volunteer fire departments, near churches and schools. It’s like Ocean City’s boardwalk moving into the neighborhood for a few days.

“It’s very self-satisfying, that we’re in a business where the idea is to supply enjoyment to youngsters of all ages,” says Tom Gaylin, president of Rosedale Attractions and Shows, one of a handful of local businesses that spend their weekends hopping from one site to another, transforming parking lots and grassy fields into carnival midways. Last weekend, they were in Essex; Thursday, they began a 10-day stint at Colgate Park (North Point Boulevard and Baltimore Street) for the annual Colgate Carnival.

“Carnivals only come to the neighborhood one time a year,” adds Terrie Shaw, whose Severn-based Shaw & Sons is providing the rides for this weekend’s Spring Fair at Hopkins. “They’re something the kids really look forward to. That’s where the glamour is in this business, watching the kids have a good time.”

Adults get a kick out of things, too, says Brenda Davis of Annapolis-based Jolly Shows, which will be running a carnival in the parking lot of Security Square Mall from May 5-16. “It’s something they can do with the kids on the weekend, and they don’t have to go all the way to Kings Dominion or Six Flags. They can come and spend a couple of hours, and it’s not that expensive.”

For many, the carnival is a magical place, but for people like Gaylin, Shaw and Davis, it’s also a job, one that takes a lot of time and requires a good bit of muscle. Amusement companies usually spend between eight and 12 hours of hard labor setting up their carnival midways. Rosedale, which works 30 to 35 carnivals a year within a 150-mile radius of Baltimore, has some 30 rides in its collection, which it transports from place to place using 100 trucks. Shaw, which handles about 30 carnivals a year, owns 35 rides, including such crowd-pleasers as the senses-rattling Zipper, Rok N Roll and Gravitron.

After the kids have ridden themselves silly and Mom and Dad have picked up the pieces, after the parking lots are once again a place for cars and the grassy fields are waiting to be mowed, carnival operators are busy moving on to another town. “It’s really not a job, and it’s really not an occupation,” says Gaylin, whose family has been in the business since 1928. “It’s more a way of life than anything else.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seeing people’s faces light up as they decide which ride to try next, listening to the festive music play as the bright lights shine and the delighted screams cascade down — there are worse ways to make a living.

“That’s the best part of it all,” says Davis, “watching the kids laugh and have fun.”

Source: AOL News

What good is a roadside attraction if it can’t sit along the side of the road? That’s the problem Gibsonton, Fla. — better known as Freaktown USA — is facing.

The town that was once home to the Monkey Girl, the Alligator Skinned Man and Lobster Boy is trying to preserve the memory of its most famous giant, Al Tomaini, with a memorial featuring a replica of his colossal boot. He reportedly stood 8 feet 4 inches tall.

Carol Philips, a former circus worker and wolf trainer, is spearheading the effort as chairwoman of the Concerned Citizens of Gibsonton. The group wants the monument to be placed along Highway 41, just south of Tampa and off the Alafia River.

That’s where the giant and his wife, Jeanie the Half Girl (she measured 2 feet 6 inches), built the Giant’s Camp restaurant and fishing cabins in the 1950s. It’s also where a huge Tomaini boot sat atop a concrete slab and served as a memorial for decades, until its recent deterioration.

However, the group faces one giant problem: Hillsborough County has said the monument must be set 50 feet away from the highway because it’s been designated as an accessory structure on commercial property.

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Source:By Keith Gebers – Citizen Staff Writer

Again this year the Elk Grove Western Festival, taking place the weekend of May 1, will feature a top line carnival.

Johnston Amusements is headquartered in Elk Grove, and is the oldest operating carnival company in California.

In addition to this year’s Elk Grove appearance, Johnston Amusements has just been signed to be the featured carnival at this year’s San Joaquin County Fair. The choice was based on the firm’s outstanding safety record.

Ken Johnston, who is also General Chairman of this year’s Western Festival, owns the firm.

“Some really outstanding rides will be featured at this year’s Western Festival Carnival,” said Johnston, “One of these is the historic Hammer, which is legendary.” Variations are also known by such names as Rock-O-Plane and Loop-O-Plane. The creator of the Hammer was Eyerly Aircraft Company in Oregon, which was has been purchased by Johnston Entertainment 10 years ago.

“We provide parts for over 4,000 rides for all over the world,” Johnston said. “The two main features of any carnival are the Ferris Wheel and Merry Go Round. We feature the most attractive traveling Ferris Wheel and Merry Go Rounds in the nation.”

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