Last night's episode of The Glades (cool show, check it out) featured "Gib Town" Florida, also known as Freaktown, Showtown, or more correctly, Gibsonton, FL. The town on the show wasn't so much the town I remember.
In the fall of 1981, shortly after high school, I traveled with my brother working some state fairs. We worked a trailer that sold cheap junk souvenir jewelry. You'd be surprised how many people buy that stuff and how many of them are willing to settle for "engraving" done free hand with an old vibrating engraving pen.
During my short stint in the carnival business I saw a guy beaten nearly to death by a swarm of carnies because a girl identified him as the guy who supposedly attacked her in some way.
I saw an attraction tent catch fire and cause quite a panic.
I watched police cars careen wildly through crowds as they raced to The Swinger where some lunatic was taking potshots at the ride with a handgun. That was the last night of the Texas State Fair.
I also saw and talked to a few of the so-called "freaks." There was an old guy, a small person who had no legs, who was billed as being half of a man. Before the fair opened in the morning he would tool around on a little dolly cart, pushing himself with padded blocks that he gripped in his fists.
There was a girl who liked to hang at our trailer and talk. She worked with the side show and had a horrifically bad dye job that was a mess of orange and black. And she was working on covering herself in tattoos so that she could one day be The Tattooed Lady. The sad part was that the majority of her tats were of the "prison tattoo" variety--cheap, black, and not very well done. To see the number of people who just casually run around town today with most of their bodies covered in colorful and--I suppose--artistic skin art, I can't help but think she didn't quite see her dream materialize.
Overall, the "freaks" I met were decent and nice people trying to make the best of limited opportunities. They rarely seemed sad, but too often they made me so.
The guy who owned the trailers and the novelty business we worked for was based, as many in the carnival business are--or were--in Gibsonton. Once our run at the Texas State Fair was finished we headed back to Florida--that was to be the end of my stint with the "independents" (Don't ever call us carnies!).
The town I remember, at least what I saw of it, was run down and old. A scattering of junk in nearly every yard hinted at the rural south I was familiar with in Kentucky, but it was all flatland and all the junk was in the form of carnival rides and signs and sideshow attraction sets.
I didn't see a lot of action in town. In fact, the only person I remember seeing was a little person walking an elephant down the road like you'd walk your dog, like there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. I suppose in that town, there wasn't.
Anyway, there's no real point to this post. I just started thinking about it after seeing The Glades. I think however fictionalized the town might be in that episode they handled the topic well. There must be a lot of mixed feelings about their heritage. I doubt there are any working side shows anymore. I'd be surprised if there were. But the history is there and the town must still bear evidence of it. Still, a lot can change in thirty years.
