A Lesson She Never Forgot

Every now and then, the aroma of a well-baked pizza takes me back to a summer fair held decades ago on the grounds of a church and school in Baltimore.

Children laughed and screamed on the rides. Popcorn popped, hot dogs sizzled, and sodas flowed. Gamblers at betting booths and game tables celebrated victories. Frustrated losers moaned. It was at one of those booths that my friend Sharon learned a lesson she never forgot. 

The betting booth with shelves of used games, knick knacks, and art objects is where Sharon's lesson began. A doll on one of the shelves made her green eyes light up the way they did after Santa delivered a gift she had asked for. "I have to win her," she whispered to me, cupping her hand around my ear. "I don't want anybody else to hear this and bet on the doll.

"Look at her dress. It's so different from my Barbie's."

The teal and white hand-crocheted dress with a full skirt looked like it was from the antebellum period and had been packed away in a box in a basement for years before someone donated it.

 Placing two quarters on number 8, Sharon watched the church volunteer at the booth spin the wheel the way people do on televised game shows. The wheel clicked to a stop at 15. "Oh well," said Sharon. "Let's get some food, Mary."

We bought cotton candy, a sweet sticky confection of spun sugar on a stick, pulling off chunks and savoring the sweetness as it melted in our mouths. Stains from the candy, as pink as a blushing child, stuck to our 8-year-

-old fingers and mouths. 

We couldn't walk around the fair looking like we didn't have table manners or, in this case, summer fair manners, so we had to find the school lavatory, knowing what might scare us before we got there.

Quietly tiptoeing in our Keds tennis shoes past Catholic statues rumored to put curses on children, we approached a group of nuns for directions. Dressed in black and white habits starting at their bonnetted heads and ending on their heavy black shoes, the nuns frightened us because they didn't dress or talk the way our teachers did. They also had reputations for being mean and violent. One of the nuns, a brusque and impatient woman, grudgingly gave us us directions as if she had something more pressing to do like save a soul, say the rosary, or pray.

In the lavatory, we washed with brown paper towels, soap from a dispenser mounted on the wall, and water. Our reflections in the mirrors above the sinks showed no traces of the cotton candy. Mine showed a girl with an auburn pageboy framing her square freckled-face. Sharon's oblong face was flushed from rubbing it with the rough paper towels, but clean.

Walking the school hallway the way we were trained to do at our public school, we sighed with relief when we got outside. We had escaped whacks from the nuns' rulers for staying in the bathroom too long or skipping or running in the school hallway.

"Let's get a Coke, Sharon," I said. In those days, you could buy fountain cokes flavored with syrup. We opted for cherry. Sipping our bubbly drinks, we meandered to the popcorn stand where you could hear the corn kernels pop, pop, popping to a stop. A cup of this salty, crunchy snack soaked in melted butter was as good as any you could buy in a movie theater.

We accidentally sauntered up to the betting booth for Sharon's next experience placing US quarters on the betting square with 8 on it. It was one of many numbers stenciled in red within red squares on a rectangular piece of wood extending from one end of the wooden booth to the other.

Setting two quarters with the image of the first president of the US, George Washington, facing up on number 8, Sharon hoped his silhouette might bring her luck. "You lost again, Sharon," I said. "So what," she snarled. "I know I'm going to win." Her strawberry blonde hair blew about in the increasing wind under a darkening sky. "I can just sense it," she said. 

"Unzipping her Cinderella change purse, she grabbed two more quarters and placed another bet on number 8. This time the eagle side of the coin faced up. Even though Sharon was younger than most gamblers, she was developing behaviors the older ones exhibited: playing the same number until it won, relying on gut feelings, and doing things she thought might bring her luck. She lost. Her purse was empty.

"I'm going to run home to ask my father to lend me a dollar out of next week's allowance," Sharon said. "Don't," I said." A storm's coming. I have a dollar left. I'll buy you a Hershey bar. Then, we'll take off for home before the rain starts, and we get our clothes wet.

The next night began well because we started it at the ferris wheel instead of the betting booth. We made one full spin. It was a lot of fun. During our second spin, the man operating the wheel stopped it to let passengers get out of the seat closest to the ground. Sharon and I were at the top of the wheel when he did this. We were as high as the trees behind the convent. Sharon swung our seat so high, I thought we were going to be thrown into the air and crash to our deaths on the schoolyard pavement below. I screamed, yelled, and begged her to stop. At our next stop, with her small hands, she tightly gripped the bar crossing our seat, and with the weight of her her medium-sized body, swung the seat even higher into the air. Her wiry hair flew from face, her eyes gleamed with excitement, and she giggled at the fun she had created for herself.

"You're going to get us killed," I screamed. "If we live through this, I'm never going to ride with you again. And, I'm going to ask the statues to put a curse on you." Neither of us knew for sure if they could do this, but we believed they could.

I guess my message got through Sharon's thick skull because she didn't swing our seat at any other stops. "Come on," she said, putting her arm around my shoulder. "I'm sorry I scared you," she said. "l'll buy you a Coke to make up for it" "Okay," I agreed, realizing I didn't want our friendship to end

over a ferris wheel ride.

Dragging me by my hand to the betting booth, our first stop on night three of the fair, Sharon said, "When I win that doll, I'm going to put it on my toy chest and show her off to everybody. A lot of my other girlfriends will want her because she's so different. They'll envy me." 

Dropping her quarters on number 8, she watched the wheel spin the way she watched Gilligan's Island on television, riveted by the actions and dress of the people stranded on a deserted island. Click, click, click, the wheel stopped one number from hers. "Wow," Sharon said, her eyes beaming light like a piece of crystal in the sunlight. "I know I'm going to win now, getting that close to my number." With shaking fingers, she dug into her purse and pulled out two more quarters. One rolled across the board because she lost her grip on it. She retrieved it and placed it next to the other one on number 8. Standing as straight as a fashion model posing for a picture, she clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and watched the wheel stop ten numbers from hers. She groaned when she lost again.

With the money she had left, Sharon bought a small bag of potato chips and a small Coke. "I wanted a slice of pizza, but I didn't have enough money left," she whined.

Our fathers gave us two dollars each night to do whatever we wanted. That was a lot of money in those days. We got it in quarters because our father's earned tips. My father drove a cab, and Sharon's dad was a waiter.

On the fourth night, Sharon placed two bets again and lost. I bought a large snowball, a cup of crushed ice flavored with chocolate syrup. A volunteer scooped a mound of vanilla ice cream on the snowball and pumped melted marshmallow over the ice cream. The top reminded me of a snow-covered mountain near my cousin's house. With the money she had remaining, Sharon could only afford a small snowball with one serving of marshmallow. She picked grape flavoring, saying the crunchy cooling treat on that hot August night tasted and felt like a grape-flavored lollipop that had been frozen.

We dressed in our best outfits for the fireworks the last night of the fair. I slipped into cantaloupe Bermuda shorts and a blouse with the melons printed on it. Sharon wore white shorts and a navy blue top with a white anchor on it. She placed three consecutive 50 cent bets with the silvery quarters. On her last spin, the wheel stopped at 8. "I won," she screamed, sounding like someone who won $25 at the Bingo table.

"I want the doll," she said, jumping up and down. The volunteer knew that as well as I did. "Honey, I'm glad you finally won," she said. "It took you some time and money, but you did what you set out to do." 

Holding the doll like a baby, Sharon kissed its pink-stained cheeks and gently stroked its auburn hair. "After I show her off to my other girlfriends, I'll lend the doll to whoever wants to play with it," she said.

Before school started, Sharon and I talked about what she had given up to win the doll: more ferris wheel rides, pizza, and a large snowball with ice cream. Winning the doll wasn't worth it," she said. "I'll never bet on anything again." To this day, she thanks that church for teaching her a lesson: money gambled, is money wasted.