I am not one of those people who is scared of clowns. I don’t really like them, and think that they are more than a little bit creepy. But they don’t scare me.

This thing, though? It scared the bejesus out of me. It’s part of a ride at the Panhandle South Plains Fair, and I think it was a kid’s ride (I might have been too scared to really notice many details, but that’s just between us, OK?). I tried this as a black and white, but it failed to convey the HOLY CRAP aspect sufficiently, so here’s a rare color post here on One Day | One Image.

I don’t really like the fair, which you may have picked up on already.

When I was a kid, my mom and her friend Mrs. Cowan (ladies didn’t have first names back then) took their daughters to the fair on an evening when the husbands were out of town. Two moms, three daughters. We rode the bus from somewhere downtown to the fairgrounds. Stayed a while, did whatever we did. Then, when it was dark and late and time to leave, my mom and Mrs. Cowan discovered that the bus wasn’t running any longer. So we stuffed ourselves into one cab for a ride back to the car. The evening did not end on a high note.

You’d think that might have made me hate buses instead of the fair.

Lubbock, Texas
photographed 9.25.2013