My Wild Carnival Ride: Grandma's Time at the Choctaw Gathering

We love to spend time with our grandchildren, and on one outing with them, I learned a valuable lesson. There was a carnival with rides and games at the yearly Choctaw Gathering near us, and we thought the grandkids would enjoy that. So on a lovely September afternoon, we set out for a day of fun with them.

Arriving at the carnival, the children could hardly contain their excitement, and the first thing they wanted to do was ride the rides. We watched as they rode the carousel, the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the mini go carts. Then we went to the magic show and some of the exhibits. It was great to see them having so much fun. By this time everyone was hungry and thirsty so we visited different food booths until everyone had gotten what they wanted to eat.

While we were eating our oldest grand daughter asked me to go on a ride with them. Of course, I said yes! I love carnival rides as much as anyone and am always up for a little fun. And even if I wasn't, how could I resist the beautiful face and pleading brown eyes of my grandbaby, right? So we finished our meal and struck out to find a ride for the three of us, Keilee and Trenton, ages nine and seven years, and myself. My husband, being the coward that he is, politely declined to ride. But he did offer to hold my purse, sunglasses and camera for me.

We looked around until we found a ride we all agreed upon. It was not one of the big rides but was bigger than the carousel or the Tilt-A-Whirl. As Goldielocks said in that famous story, it was "just right." Innocent looking enough, it had seats large enough to hold the three of us so that we could all ride together. These were attached to a center base by long spidery "legs". Not being very fond of heights, I was happy to see that the seats were quite low to the ground. We watched the people in front of us take their turns and as the ride went around I thought, "This doesn't look too scary. I can handle this."