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About Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1977)
Page 16 — Griffin Daily News Thursday, September 29,1977 Cheap bets and thrill shows Carnival people vanish as quickly as they come BY CINDY GLOZIER McDonough, Ga. Colorful, candid, and sometimes cocky, people traveling with a fair, or “Camles”, as they call themselves, storm Into a town, spend some time fulfilling human fantasies, and then vanish into the night as quickly as they came. They touch the lives of those who enter their world of cotton candy, Ferris wheels, thrill shows, and cheap bets for the small time gambler. They laugh and tease, make idle conversation, lure passersby into their midway booths, and then pack up In the shadows of an ended show to to another place. In a sense, they too are touched, often clinging to Jobs for a lifetime as an adult clings to memories of carnivals gone by. "Camles” come and go, seeing humanity at play, bejng a part of the fun. "I was 16 years ora when I ran away from home to join a carnival,’'' reminisces W.H. Harden, owner and operator of the show which attracted so many Henry County citizens at the Fairgrounds last week. "My daddy caught me that first time in 1949 and wore me out good when he got me home. He couldn’t understand how it all fascinated me so. He was a doctor and he wanted me to be a doctor. I didn’t want to do anything but travel with a show.” Harden ran away a few times after his father caught him. But then his father died a few years later and his mother let him leave with the fair. "I guess she thought I was too big for her to do anything with,” says the owner. "I left and started traveling and I’ve never regreted it. It’s a hard life, but never dull. I’ve been all over the United States with several different shows. I’ve met people from all walks of life. That’s pretty good for a guy with a seventh grade education.” Harden began his career operating a Ferris wheel at $3.00 a week. In 1974 he opened W.H. Harden Shows, making sometimes more than SI,OOO a week during the March through October fair season. "I was tickled to death when I was running that Ferris wheel,” says Harden twisting a diamond studded gold medallion ring on his left hand. "I still feel that way now. I love this life. I wouldn’t trade it in for the world.” W.H. Harden Shows travel throughout Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina every year, adding new rides from time to time, presenting a variety of talent and games. "The people who work for me are like all people In life,” states Harden. "We get the good and the bad, the stupid and the Intelligent. I’ve learned that some of the most backward people In the world have college degrees. They come Into my show with the business all figured out and they don’t put much faith on my experience. Most of the time they make a mess of things because they don’t have any common sense. Education is great if you can see the other side of life, too.” Harden says his biggest money-making show is the Double Wide Mobile Home 60x24, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, den, furnished. °my $12,900 Includes delivery, installation, warranty. Many more beautiful homes on display. 12-14- and 24 wide. South’s Finest - Service Department. Buddy’s Homes 8500 Tara Blvd. Jonesboro, Ga. 478-9942 Closed Sunday B- IAL Igi g=>J $ 1 79 21 c : gs: On ® iPI I p* r : Customer! g | I r Oct. 2nd I IALTYI I i P> fl Pwr 3 'I 4- PT I I /Mra 1 V -zk B < h 1 John Rolfe menaces at a youngster attempting to hassle the ride owner Georgia Mountain Fair is Hiawassee. “We really pack ’em in there,” he states. “Camden, South Carolina, where we’re going after we leave here Is a big one, too. I'll tell you this business gets better every year.” The recession period from 1974-76 didn’t hurt Harden at all financially. "When people are troubled about money, they look for away to get away from their troubles,” says the show owner. “The fair Is cheaper than a lot of other big events. They come here even if they can’t afford to go anywhere else.” Like most of his employees, Harden lives In a trailer during show months. He and his wife direct the general operations of the fair. They spend the winter on vacation at their home in Toccoa, Georgia. Many of the carnival workers make their winter homes in Florida, working for shows in America’s vacationland. Motorcycle stuntman Mark MaGraw lives in Orlando when he isn’t seeking thrills across the country or in South America. MaGraw rides a motorcycle on the walls of a tunnel, nearly upside down, for W.H. Harden Shows. He has also done stunts in a number of movies produced in Hollywood. In November, MaGraw will be featured on ABC’s Wide World of Sports as he attempts to jump Atlanta's Peachtree Towers tunnel riding a rocket powered motorcycle. “I’m still nervous before I do a stunt,” says MaGraw. “Even something minor like that I do here makes me shake. A man’s a fool if he’s not afraid.” MaGraw’s parents were high wire artists for Ringling Brothers’ Circus before they died. "I guess I’ve just got this kind of life in my blood,” says the blonde twenty-three year old. “This isn’t my main type of work though. I do a lot of crash work for movies and commercials. I’ve crashed motorcycles for movies such as ’Freebie and the Bean’ and ‘Sixteen’. Next year I’m gonna jump my bike over 500 compact cars and then retire. They say I’ll get |5 million off that one-if I make it.” MaGraw’s carnival act is shared with a middle aged stunt veteran, Bobby Mercer. Mercer rides the tunnel walls in a 1930 motorcycle without holding on to the handle bars and standing up now and then. Mercer doesn't say much. He plans to retire in “a couple of years.” John Rolfe, or “Choo-Choo Ding-Ding” as his younger friends call him, has been traveling with shows for 46 years. “This is a great life,” states the kiddle ride operator. "The only hard work is on Saturday night when we pack up to leave and then the next day when we set up. What other kind of work lets you live like that?” Rolfe says he settled down once for three years and got married. “Don’t mention women to me now though,” says the wrinkled Rolfe. “That was the last time I stayed in one place for that long.” Game operator Opel Carpender, who has been in the fair business for 55 years, is a native of Louisiana who believes life across the country Is pretty much the same. "People are people wherever you go,” says Opel. “You name the place and I’ve been there and met the people. They’re all just about the same.” So goes life at the fair. The folk who work there enjoy life. They say they work hard and play hard. They see life at its finest-full of smiles and the £ady Ethridge Mill Road STORE-WIDE p. ~ Z ) Sweaters s*Fall and / * / c^' nt -l r _ Jk Co-ordinate / SALE P| G*Ws / Entire Stock ★ f 1 / W > /J off *R Slacks > USE YOUR S B Cft \ PLUS T MUCH \ MORE! sound of children laughing. Their classroom is the world in which they travel and they learn more than some of the most educated ever dream to realize. Sioux descendants go uncompensated By JEFFREY MILLS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — A century after the Indian victory at "Custer’s last stand” infuriated Congress, legislators are still refusing to compensate the descen dants of the Sioux Nation for their confiscated land. A bill that would have allowed the Sioux to avoid a legal technicality and get a hearing on their claim to com pensation was defeated “This land was absolutely stolen from these Indians. It is a rank, double-dealing thing that our nation did,” said Rep. James P. Johnson, R-Colo. He was referring to an 1877 law that took 7.3 million acres in South Dakota’s Black Hills from the Sioux. Congress approved the seizure after word reached Washington that Gen. George A. Custer’s force had been wiped out at Little Bighorn. The U.S. Court of Claims, reviewing the 1877 congressional action, said in 1975 that, “a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” But the court said it could not rule on the case because the matter had been decided, “whether rightly or wrongly,” 33 years earlier. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case. is pleased to announce that Tom Gary formally of Forbe s Drug Co. is now associated with Ronnie Higgins & Coles.
