Doing the Boonton Carnival
Really the carnies have classed up some. Yesterday at the Boonton Fire Department Street Fair, I saw none of the soot-covered grizzle, flared nostrils and dangling cigarettes I recall so fondly from the olden days. I'd always assumed that kind of lifestyle - hard drinking, heavy smoking, strapping people into teacups - takes its toll on your body. But yesterday, the staff was all natty in turquoise golf shirts. It was uncanny. There was an alternate universe moment when I fully expected the cotton candy boy to break into his impersonation of Boston Symphony conductor Seiji Ozaw. Fortunately, I spotted a battalion of jellybean homegirls in their summer stretch denim tottering off the Scrambler looking like very short hoochie mammas with acute inner ear infections. And then there was a screecher of a catfight by the 50/50 booth. After the guy vaulted over the cajun hotdog counter to break it up and rescue the one from under the other one's enormous pleather handbag, I felt total...