The kids loved them

Summers in Palouse when I was a kid meant carnivals and the circus.

They held the carnivals just off Main Street and next to the downtown gym.

My brother Bob got kicked out of the carnival one summer.

They had a monkey on a chain, and it was a popular attraction.  

Well Bob, who was always pushing the envelope, pushed a little too much. He was teasing the monkey, and the animal would make it out to the end of the chain. Bob didn’t calculate distance too well, and the monkey got on him, causing a stir. 

Every carny at the site thought Bob was harming the monkey and came running. It was the other way around. Bob was screaming and a crowd gathered.

He was on his way off the carnival grounds and told not to come back. We just laughed. He was really scared, and if monkeys could smile, this one would have.

They did a neat thing for us kids. They would scatter a bale of straw, dump in a couple rolls of dimes, and then let us wade into the straw and try to find the dimes.

They didn’t have a lot of rides but lots of activities for families.

I guess they thought it was a rich farming community and the farmers had a lot of money, so investing a couple rolls of dimes was a good come on.

The circuses were another matter.

They were housed across from the city park.

An advance guy would come in with flyers and would staple them on every power pole in town.

They probably printed a zillion of them and wrote the dates the circus would be there. Then it was time for the staple gun.

They would put up the tent and get ready for the circus parade down Main Street. They always had a couple of elephants and a few other animals.

Some kid would get talked into cleaning up after the elephants to get a free ticket for a show, of which there were usually two a day.

We could usually count on a couple of circuses a season.

The gym on Main Street was the place for the bearded House of David to take on our town team in an exhibition basketball game.

The Harlem Globetrotters frequented Palouse, and on one occasion the locals outscored the visitors.

It was a fun place for kids, with a lot of visiting entertainers.

But my favorite attraction was my brother with that monkey all over him.