In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

JeFF rides tHe rides The year my little brother Jeff turned eight was a real important year for him. On his eighth birthday, my daddy looked at him and said, “Jeff, now that you are eight years old, when Meade County Fair time comes, you can go over to the midway and ride all the rides all by yourself. You won’t have to have any older brothers and sisters tagging along with you to make sure you behave.” Oh, Jeff was excited. From his birthday in April all the way to fair time in August, he’d look at us and say, “I get to ride all the rides—all by myself. You don’t get to watch me. You can’t boss me around. You can’t follow me. You can’t tell me what to do. I get to ride all the rides, all the rides, all by myself, all by myself . . . ” By the time August and fair time rolled around we were all sick and tired of listening to Jeff go on and on about how he was going to ride all the rides. Finally, the Meade County Fair got set up on the fairgrounds in Brandenburg, the county seat. We all crowded into our car and Daddy drove the fifteen miles from our farm down to the fairgrounds. Everybody jumped out, and Daddy said, “Now, listen up. Tonight is English horse show night. That means there’s going to be organ music playing. When the organ music stops, I expect all of you all to come on back to the car because it will be time to go home.” We all said, “All right, Daddy.” Then we ran off in all directions to find our friends and enjoy the fair. When the organ music stopped, everybody came on back to the car—including my little brother Jeff. On the way home, Daddy asked, “Well, Jeff, did you ride all the rides?” Jeff said, “Oh, I tried to, Daddy. I rode ’em all except one.” “Jeff, I thought I gave you enough money to ride all the rides. Why didn’t you ride that one?” 170 FAMILY TALES AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES “Oh, you gave me plenty of money. I rode some of ’em two and three times. I couldn’t ride that one because I couldn’t figure out where to buy a ticket.” “Jeff, what do you mean you couldn’t figure out where to buy a ticket? What was that ride?” “Well, I’m not real sure I figured out the name of it right because it didn’t have a big sign over the top of it like all the other rides did. But I can tell you what it looked like. It was tall—taller than you are, Daddy. And it was white, and there were several of them lined up side by side, and each one of them had a door on the front. From the outside the ride didn’t look like it did too much. A person would walk up, open the door, step inside, and close the door. After a while they’d open the door again and step out. So from the outside it really didn’t look very exciting, but every time I was anywhere near it there were always great long lines of people looking like they could hardly wait their turn to ride that ride. And after the ride—when they opened the door and walked away, they always looked like they’d had a pretty good time; so I believe it was one of the better rides there.” Now, none of us were laughing out loud—after all, this was the youngest child talking, so we didn’t dare laugh—but we were quivering all over from the effort to hold our laughter in. My Daddy shook his head and said, “Jeff, are you sure there were no words, no words at all associated with that ride?” “Oh, Daddy, I knew rides had names, so I looked it over real careful and I found some words, I believe that ride was called the Port-a-Car.” It seems the Port-a-Can company was hired to supply the portable toilets at the Meade County Fair that year and an important part of the “n” in their logo was missing. My little brother Jeff really would have ridden the portable toilets, if he just could have figured out where to buy himself a ticket...

Share