Trying to stay wholesome at Parkville Days

Is it possible for a 30-year-old man to attend a carnival by himself without being perceived as a pederast or some manner of pervert? The short answer is no. An individual with extraordinary charisma and grace might successfully navigate such terrain, but these qualities elude me. Still, I am not a pervert, not really anyway, and so it was with a clear conscience that I jumped on Highway 9 Sunday afternoon and cruised solo to the 44th annual Parkville Days festival.

Parkville is one of the most charming cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area, a white-shuttered, low-speed-limit hamlet tucked away off a northern bank of the Missouri River. When I have daydreams about starting life anew in some small town where my past can’t find me, the town I imagine bears resemblance to Parkville. And yet, I never go there, busied as I am by my duties as a music journalist and barfly gadabout. But a man can do only so much gadabouting! Good, clean fun is the promise of Parkville Days, and I was determined to seize that rectitude, soak it in, and let it dilute the sinner’s blood that flows through me.

I missed the parade, which was held Saturday, but downtown Parkville was still buzzing Sunday afternoon with young families and wild-eyed packs of tweens. There are two primary attractions at Parkville Days: the carnival rides they plunk down in a parking lot off South Main Street, and the bazaarlike rows of booths, stands and tents closer to the river, in English Landing Park.

Along the vendor path, an old man in a blue mechanic-style jumpsuit and a hat that read “Korea Veteran” sat on a lawn chair. Before him was a table of curious objects: means of conveyance constructed from beer cans. A Miller Lite train, a Hamm’s plane, Bud cans shaped like the Mayflower. The man’s name was Lee.

“I retired from the railroad almost 20 years ago, 1993, and started making these,” he told me. I took one of his business cards, which identify him only by his first name.

It’s not all flowery dresses and kettle corn and bee products at Parkville Days. The vendors are more corporate than you might expect: booths hocking Cutco, bath fitters, Prudential insurance, aluminum siding, gutter protection. Snore. Other than my man Lee and an ice-cream place shaped like an ice-cream cone, there wasn’t much in the way of commerce for a man of my tastes. “I want Dippin’ Dots, I want Dippin’ Dots, I want Dippin’ Dots,” a little girl on a pink training-wheel bike whined at her mother. Purple pompoms splashed out from the sides of the bike’s handlebars.

A few minutes later, scooping at some Dippin’ Dots in the shade of the Super Slide, I spotted a ride called the Cliff Hanger. I’d tried out variations of all the other rides — the Ferris wheel, the Ali Baba, the zero-gravity one where centrifugal force pins you to the wall — at different amusement parks over the years. But I’d never been on a Cliff Hanger, which is like a horizontal Ferris wheel. Instead of sitting in a carriage, you lie on your stomach with your arms stretched out ahead of you. Like a hang glider. Or Superman. And it goes round and round, superfast.

A police officer strolled past and eyed me for longer than seemed routine; I couldn’t continue lurking alone in the shadows. It became clear that I had no choice in the matter: I bought four tickets for $4 from the ticket booth, and I marched up to the Cliff Hanger line. A young couple and their 5-year-old son stood ahead of me, waiting on the attendant. The woman sensed my presence, glanced over her shoulder and politely smiled. Then she drew a sort of triangle with her gaze: downward, to the open air on my left, then over to the open air on my right — empty spaces where she expected to find a child or maybe a significant other. Nope! Just me! Then her gaze moved up, her brow slowly furrowing, to my horrible, grimacing, idiotic face.

The attendant, a gruff guy in his mid-20s, in a black tank top and with a tattoo on his shoulder, returned and waved us in, interrupting my shaming.

“You go back there, way in the back,” the attendant told me. “Nope — all the way back.” It was three people to a gondola, but I was the only one in my gondola. He opened the hatch, I lay down, and he locked me in. I stared ahead, vulnerable and helpless, paralyzed by the steel bars bolted down around me. There was a mechanical whir, we were elevated a couple of feet, and the ride began. At first, it was like a merry-go-round, but then we gradually tilted vertical, and by the end, we were circling around at wild diagonal angles, like a plane about to crash.

The gears of the machine were grinding and screeching, and I was thinking about how, if I saw on the five-o’clock news that some carnival ride at a street festival had malfunctioned and some of the passengers had died, I would not be particularly shocked. But I was already up in the sky, flying, and what happened on this run of the Cliff Hanger was beyond my control. I opened my mouth as wide as it could go and drank in the rushing wind like it was water jetting from a spigot.