The year I entered junior high, I discovered that I was 'The Missing Link' in the evolution of man.

That fall a cheesy carnival had come to our town and pitched its tents and booths in the parking lot of a closed-up store whose owner hoped to make a few extra bucks. So, on a Saturday night, off I went to the carnival with several friends.

Among all the wacky sideshow booths was one with canvas curtains painted as a jungle scene, and a large plywood box that parted the curtains. There was a brightly painted sign that read, "Neither Human Nor Ape, The Mysterious 'Missing Link' May Be Safely Seen Through Our Protective Viewing Port," and an arrow pointed to a dinner-plate-sized hole cut into the box.

A black rubber ring encircled the hole in the plywood and a tiny wooden wheel on a short piece of dowel rod stuck out of the box to one side of the ring. Inside of the hole was a filmy sheet of glass mounted on some sort of spindle.

I peered in, but I couldn't quite see through the glass. However, I could see a tiny sign inside that read, "Use wheel to focus." As soon as I turned the little wheel, the filmy glass rotated aside. Then I could see a jungle scene, which I realized was actually a mirror reflecting what had been painted on the inside of the plywood box through which I was looking. Also glued to the plywood was a wrinkly, furry, pot-bellied, monkey-like body dressed in a leopard-skin toga. Reflected above the toga and below a top-knot of hair wrapped around a chicken bone, was the cut-out through which my face now peered at the mirror - making ME the missing link!

It was hokey but funny.

What was even funnier, (but unknown to those of us who happened to view the box while accompanied by friends lacking any sense of loyalty,) was that the rubber ring against which one pressed their face while peering in, had been smeared over with charcoal dust by some carney worker! So, off I went through the carnival, with a black ring encircling my face, gawking like some red-neck mime, at all the giggling girls.

That was a long, long time ago. But the other day, returning from the shower, wrapped in a towel, I caught a glimpse of my aged, pot-bellied, hairy body reflected in the mirror and wouldn't you know, the memory flooded back of that missing link from that carnival night with my old friends.

Yes, some day before it's too late, I'll definitely have to 'get' those old friends.


...jfox...

Chapter Two - Carnivals can be fun, but a trip to the Drive-in horror show is altogether different...