Attribution:Rhode Island Collection, Providence Public Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper honors the season of summer fairs by recalling the Barron County Fair in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, when he and his cousin Rob watched a young woman catch a bullet in her teeth.
He has forgotten her “show” name but the keeper remembers how the woman grimaced as a fellow showman fired a revolver at her from 30 feet or so whereupon she then spit forcefully into a metal pie pan which was then passed around to the crowd to show that it did indeed contain the lead projectile from a bullet.
This was the same fair that had the sword swallower and the snake man who sat picking his teeth in a canvas enclosure with a collection of snakes.
The keeper and Rob were just barely old enough for unchaperoned fair mischief, which means this was 85 or so years ago and marks an era of youthful innocence when the main fair attraction was harness racing with old men riding those two-wheeled sulkies behind pacing horses.
The noise level was such that you could hear the old men’s shouted curses.
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