Daddy and the carnival

Every fall our school would have its annual festival--it was referred to as Halloween carnival in those days. Really a big deal for our little community and school. Each class elected their duke and duchess to be presented at the beginning of the festival that night, after that --the party was on! Goodness sakes, there was booths of all sorts- throwing darts, basketball free-throws,throwing balls to knock dolls over,bingo,etc.etc. the most popular place in the gym was always the cake walk- You know by now that the women in the community took great pride in the food that they prepared..Each Mom was asked to donate a cake for the walk, now you don't need to be a rocket scientist to KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that only the best recipe in their cake file would make its way to the festival. Heck, most of them didn't even use recipes--like Mom it was a matter of just start pouring and dipping flour by the handfuls and adding a little of this and a little of that until she was pleased with the way "it looked" --into the oven it would go and bake until it smelled like it was done! There would be the most beautiful cakes on display, it was easy to see why the lines was always long with mouth watering people awaiting their turn to do the cake walk--each one hoping they would be the one standing on the lucky number when the walk ended.
There was always "apple dun kin" or some called it "bobbin for apples".This was THE PLACE for the children--man we did love it.A big trough would be full of water and apples would be floating in it. The rules were that you kept your hands behind your back and would lean down and try to pick up the apple with your mouth. Now our school was mixture of white , black and brown and here we were all opened mouth trying to catch apples as they floated around--you get my drift don't you?? Well, Daddy sure did --remember how he checked out the kitchens if possible to make sure they were clean--well not really but he was picky about clean cooking etc.
Before we returned to the carnival the next year, Daddy ask us if we plan to bob for apples----CERTAINLY- we are, he said "Well, I hope you know that every kid up there is "slobbering" in that water with their mouths gaped open and lick in' on those apples." It is SO true how well parents know their children.....not a one of us ever bobbed for apples again--in fact it sort of turned my stomach to watch it after that. The cake walk was THE PLACE to go in the years that followed--well- until he mentioned that we better watch out for ---ahhh, well you don't want to know about that!!!