A Few Carnival Leftovers Worth Sharing

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I always take more pictures and notes during the Watermelon Carnival than I can squeeze into the next edition of the Herald. So, I figured it might be fun to share a few more of these stories while the carnival is still fresh on our minds.

I enjoyed catching up with Tommy Latham, who may have been the only local grower with watermelons at the carnival besides Ross Burney’s Cypress Creek Farming Co. Tommy had help in the patch just south of town from Joe Newman, and said the wet spring made it hard to keep the grass and weeds under control. He also recruited his granddaughter, Hazel, to collect money from customers during the weekend — a job she handled with ease.

I met Joe Bedford of New Albany, who has been coming to the carnival for several years. All of his hand-crafted items are made from reclaimed wood that once formed the gym floor at Blue Mountain College. His story was that he swapped labor for some of the wood, then built hundreds of bowls, platters and knick-knacks from it.

Speaking of stories, I’ve learned that just about every vehicle in the antique car show at Shuffield Park has one. Jerry Hill told me how he bought his 1926 Ford Model T in the early 1960s from a gentleman in Cleveland. The car was stored in a beer warehouse, and Jerry had to move several hundred cases of beer just to get to it. He put $100 down and came back a few days later with the remaining $300. He’s done very little work to the car over the years, except paint it bright yellow — a color choice inspired by the early Winton Flyer in the Paul Newman movie, The Reivers.

“I said, my car is going to be yellow,” Jerry recalled.

I also snapped a picture of Terry and Patricia Jones of Coffeeville with their 1969 Dodge Dart. They found the car in Cleveland near the airport after seeing an ad in the Tradewinds. It had front-end damage from a wreck, but Terry traded some hay for a paint job and body work. The result is a pretty classic that they enjoy driving.

At the park entrance, Artie Stewart and his son Kevin had their antique Chevrolet truck on display. Mr. Artie held up a photo of the truck taken around 1980 or 1981 at an early Watermelon Carnival — back when his and one other were the only two vehicles in the lineup.

Other show highlights included Bill Embry’s newly acquired 1955 Chevrolet truck, which he tracked down in North Carolina last November, and Billy and Emily Childs’ latest ride — a 1966 Ford Galaxie convertible they bought in Kentucky just days before the carnival.

Billy said he once had a ’66 Galaxie back when he and Emily were dating a “few” years ago, but it wasn’t a convertible. Now don’t be fretting that they have more old cars than they need — Billy recently sold a nice Trans Am that I happened to like before he bought this one. He’s only the third owner of the Galaxie, which was bought new by a man who worked over 30 years on the Ford line that built them. That man purchased it in 1976 for $1,500.

Maybe next year will be my year to roll into Shuffield Park with an “antique.” Of course, mine would only be about 30 years old — I’ve always had my eye on a big-body Ford Bronco from around 1993 to 1996. Maybe even a white one like O.J. Simpson’s.

On second thought, I probably better scratch that idea. I don’t have any hay to swap for labor, and my mechanical skills are… well… let’s just say

I’m better with a camera than a wrench. I like to think I could watch a YouTube video and handle repairs — if everything went right. But when it doesn’t, my patience runs short, and I might use a few words that don’t belong in my regular vocabulary.

Come to think of it, I have enough projects around the house to keep me busy. No need to add another. Cue YouTube.