SUNDAY STORY -- Growing up at the fair

Young Chang

Amanda Wilkerson and her brother Justin have just discovered that they

forgot to bring Spiro 3.

What’s the use in having their Playstation with only Spiro 2,

Coolboarders 3, A Bug’s Life and a couple demo games?

Forget that they’re on the road -- in a trailer, in the more hidden

corners of the Orange County Fair, where their living quarters are

bordered by La Grande Wheel on one side and a stable on the other.

Forget that they have horseback riding lessons in the afternoon,

animals to tend to at the family’s petting zoo “All Creatures Great and

Small” and a fair full of rides, Tasti Chips and Twister contests to

entertain them instead.

They need Spiro 3. They want Spiro 3.

Amanda, 10, picks up her mother’s cell phone and calls someone named

Sean at their Riverside home. He’s coming to the fair today. He is to

bring Spiro 3 with him.

Jennifer Wilkerson, Amanda’s mother, calmly continues making tuna

sandwiches for the two kids and “papa,” who’s out working the petting

zoo.

Amanda’s request isn’t a petty one.

She needs what she needs to feel at home, and if Spiro 3 will do that,

then Spiro 3 it is.

“We’re good at making do like we’re at home,” Wilkerson said.

Which is exactly how this year’s junior carnies seem to feel -- at

home. Although they know the thrill and the unsettledness of living at a

fair during summer, the Orange County Fair’s youngsters prove they’re

just normal kids.

The Holmes’ family, who run the Fruit Caboose at the fair, take

regular breaks to the park for downtime with family. Their 14-year-old

daughter Ashley loves this -- that the family remains tight and

structured despite constant travel from their Northern California home.

Martha Fenton, who operates a dart game at the Ray Cammack Shows

carnival section of the fair, talks every night with her daughter

Victoria Luquin about the choices the 8-year-old made that day -- whether

they were right ones or wrong ones.

They do this at home in Phoenix every night before bed. Being on the

road for two weeks or sometimes more doesn’t mean that good child rearing

takes a break too.

“People are like ‘Oh, carnies this, carnies that,’ but it’s like, what

do you know about carnies?” Fenton said. “We mold them to be good people

and good citizens. We teach them the value of life, spending time

together and working.”

Amanda helps her mother clean the petting zoo every morning before

they open. She hops over fences, sweeps with brooms, cleans out the pens

where the animals lay and gives a hug or two to the cow that’s nearest.

Her brother Justin helps too. His job is to give visitors their change

and give them animal food to hand out while they’re looking around.

When they’re not doing business, the young fair experts choose a

haystack on which to read Harry Potter books or draw. Justin likes

watching the video “Gremlins.” Amanda catches up on the latest issues of

“Mary Kate and Ashley” magazines. The embarrassing-moment stories make

her laugh.

During the school year, the kids stay home with one of the parents.

“We’re only gone for a few weeks at a time, but it’s a lot of back and

forth,” Wilkerson said.

Victoria, who is enrolled in school throughout the academic year but

travels with her parents during the summer, spends much of her time at

the Ray Cammack Shows day care-center trailer. Michele Belo, a traveling

nanny, leads Victoria and about five other kids in craft activities,

educational lessons, field trips and, of course, puts them all down for

their midafternoon naps every day.

Each child has a multicolored, cardboard-paper chain hanging from the

ceiling. The blue rings are given for being good during nap times. The

pink ones are for playing nice in the yard.

“It’s not that they spend the whole summer out here running the

midway,” Belo said. “They have structure in their lives.”

Admittedly, carnival kids meet more people during an average day than

do other kids. They come across good people as well as bad people, Belo

said.

“They’re very street smart, so to speak,” she added. “It’s not your

traditional setting by any means, but it’s like anything else -- you can

be in a perfect middle-class environment going to school, but still have

bad points.”

Ashley, who was born into the fair business and helps her parents,

David and Susan, run the Fruit Caboose stands, says she loves coming out

to fairs and reuniting with friends who have become more like her

brothers. Sharing childhood along the same fair-circuit can do that, she

says.

“Every day’s different for me, which I love,” said Ashley, who aspires

to be a pediatrician. “You have a different story to tell every day . . .

And I’m with my parents all the time, which is great.”

Life on the road has taught her to pack well -- she is never without

her favorite polka-dotted brown blanket and lavender curling iron -- and

adjust to transitions.

The family’s trailer has all the amenities of home, including a

home-sweet-home sign and a cloth window rim that matches the plaid design

of Ashley’s bedsheets. The Holmes have even grown accustomed to sharing

one bathroom.

And fair kids acclimate. Ashley’s alarm clock is the hoofing of

elephants near her trailer. Amanda’s morning ritual includes cleaning the

animal pens. Becky Bailey-Findley, general manager of the fair, picked up

a knowledge of crops.

Her father Jim Bailey manages Centennial Farm today and supervised the

fair’s livestock area when she was growing up. Bailey-Findley’s hangout

was the fair since the early 1960s, and she remembers the family drives

down to Costa Mesa from her Fullerton home every year.

“My father would quiz us about what crops we were seeing from the

car,” she said. “And actually, I’m pretty good at identifying crops from

a moving vehicle.”

Despite all the traveling, Fenton is grateful for the community at Ray

Cammack Shows. It makes the the kids feel safe just running around, and

most importantly, they feel loved.

“It’s a neighborhood that goes with you everywhere you go,” she said.

* YOUNG CHANG writes features. She may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or

by e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com.