One of those hard to believe, but true facts. Whence the carnival comes to town, so too, do the carnies.

You know it’s an ass of a day when you have growing empathy for a piece of dog excrement because it’s not getting as much attention from the flies as the rotting carcass of a half-eaten raccoon. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The park was littered with half-eaten cotton candy, corncobs, styrofoam and plastic-coated cups. The trashcans overflowed with crushed Mexican beer cans and wedges of dried out limes.

Where once was green grass was now yellow something or another. Large tracts of land matted down like old man hair. This was the aftermath of Hickory Heights Round-Up Days. Every year, like self-imposed psoriasis, the carnival came.

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