Some of our memories involve vomiting up funnel cake or maybe a bad acid-trip. Others involve your high school lover, daytime concerts or a free goldfish. These memories usually trigger as soon as you step out of your car and begin to smell the buttered popcorn or hear the high-pitch squeals of un-lubricated metal scraping against itself while little kids yell and tug at their parents arms. The ground leading up to the entrance is usually littered with flyers, napkins and the occasional horse dung. Evangelists pass out flyers and Scientologists offer free stress-tests as you come closer to the booths. Screams are heard, bright lights are flashing and synthesized keyboards are playing frantically like an ice-cream truck run-a-muck. You buy your over-priced ticket, get your hand stamped, and you finally walk in with a mob of other people. Youre at the fair.

A staple event of every summer, fairs sluggishly arrive yearly for a weekend to entertain hoards of people before shipping out of town to its next destination. We have all come, attracted by bright lights, questionable amusement park rides, entertainment and heart attack-inducing fast food. And we have all returned home with some sort of interesting experience to remember. However, one of the interesting parts of this experience can be the brief interaction we all must endure with those who work at the fair. Who are the people behind this principle element of Americana?

Often referred to as Carnies, there is a popular perception that these characters are sly and cunning thieves who exist in a tightly knit subculture that purposely chooses to exist on the fringes of society. This has been further perpetuated in popular media by films like Carnies, starring Gary Busey. And who can forget the Steve Martin classic The Jerk, where he works with a traveling carnival?

Sometimes these individuals will call you schoolyard names to get your attention and then offer you deals to play their games. They are often missing teeth and look as if they havent changed their hairstyle since 1971. However, without these strange and interesting vagabonds, the fair might never have arrived to entertain your city.

Funtastic Traveling Shows, a traveling fair company located in Gresham, hardly displays the image of a rough group of sketchy carnival freaks. Funtastic, which recently put on the Cinco de Mayo fair at the Portland waterfront, maintains all the typical rides, bad food and amusement games. However, the employees all wear bright red and yellow uniforms, and consist mostly of local temporary volunteers. Brian, a Funtastic employee who embodies the opposite of such typified ideas of carnies, fully disagrees with such carnival personnel stereotypes.

We tend to keep it pretty professional around here, but there are still stereotypes of who we are. The word 'Carny is a stereotype and offensive. I think Amusement Technicians is more politically correct.

Brian, who lives in Gresham and has worked for Funtastic Traveling Shows for over 17 years, started out working at a game booth. Now a ride supervisor, Brian picks up extra hours in the customer service trailer. While Brian cannot pick a favorite city that Funtastic visits, he usually looks forward to towns that have some of his favorite restaurants or are close to home. Looking back over his time at Funtastic, Brian believes that not a lot has changed.

The kids and adults that attend the fair are just as happy as they were 20 years ago, in my opinion.

However, Brian further expressed his dissatisfaction with amusement technician stereotypes. Apparently, to Brian, the much-celebrated Carny lingo is now just a myth.

While the infamous lingo may no longer be in use, it once was an integral part of carnival life. An online e-book called On the Midway, lists over 10 pages of lingo, including such words as scratch, which refers to the money earned from a concession, oats, which refers to stolen money, and dog house, which is the enclosed booth that the ride attendant sits in. The e-book, which can be found www.goodmagic.com , also has documented pages of Gypsy, Vaudeville, American Circus and British/European Carnival slang. However, despite such records, Brian insists that such lingo is no longer utilized by carnival employees.

I dont know of any so-called lingo. As far as I am aware, we all use the same language around here. The F-word is still the F-word.

Most fairs in the Northwest are currently put on by Funtastic Traveling Shows. As a company, Funtastic has operated in the Northwest, most of California, and occasionally in Arizona and New Mexico for over 30 years. Claiming to be a five-star carnival, Funtastics owner and founder, Ron Burback, states on the Funtastic Web site that, through his five-point formula of professionalism, efficiency, fairness, service and entertainment, Funtastic is "just possibly... the world's finest carnival."

While the worlds finest carnival may be in question, Funtastics most recent Cinco de Mayo fair did display a relatively professional group of workers with many friendly and helpful volunteers. While the full-time employees were nice, they also kept quiet when asked about amusement technician life. One unnamed employee instructed me elsewhere and refused to talk at all.

Whatever Customer Service says is what I say. If you dont do what they say, then youre outta here!

Despite the relatively tame Funtastic experience, one senses that an underlying world of unruly Carny life exists beyond the red and yellow shirts and the faux-smiles. Thirty years in business has seemingly prevented it from seeping out onto the midway, and proof of such a subculture is rare.

However, after a couple of Google searches on Carny life, you may happen upon the strange and beautiful blog of an unnamed 41-year-old man who, for the last three years, has been documenting his life under the title, Diary of a Carny. While most blog spots are often rarely fascinating and filled with snobbish rants, Diary of a Carny is full of bizarre and vivid descriptions of carnival life, written by a man who has been a Carny since he was 15. Similarities to beat-generation writing come to mind, though more sluggish and much darker. The posts often tell of lost friends, sex in cheap hotel rooms with girls twenty-years young from nowhere Midwest, thoughts on the silhouettes of faces he has seen in his many on the midway, and interactions with other old-timers like himself. It reads like a journal and one is immediately pulled in.

Unfortunately, over the past three months the blogs have become infrequent and the author has since quit the carnival life. Despite an inability to contact the writer, it serves as a brief yet accurate portrayal of a group of individuals who seem to be diminishing. Needless to say, the life described in this site is a far cry from Funtastics five-point formula.

So the mystery seems to remain. How does one investigate those who are always on the move?

The history of carnivals only further perpetuates a contradictory story of an event that is run and operated by a shady group of scoundrels. Originally, carnivals were a Catholic event that took place just before the 40 days of Lent, which consisted of a period each year without festivities, to commemorate the passion of Jesus Christ. Thus, people would throw a large celebration beforehand. Such carnivals are still put on all over the world, from South America to Europe.

Carnivals as we know them in the United States originally were known as fun fairs to distinguish themselves from such religious events. These fun fairs are usually traveling carnivals like Funtastic or in the vein of Coney Island in New York.

One such permanent fun fair is Oaks Amusement Park located in the Southeast District of Sellwood. Operating for over a hundred years throughout the summer and most of the rest of the year on the weekends, Oaks Park offers most of the same bad food and rickety rides that one can find at any state or county fair, including a skating rink and go karts. Oaks Park feels friendlier than Funtastic, and the employees are much more willing to talk about their experiences.

One such employee is Marilyn Randall, who has worked at Oaks Park for over six years. However, Randall officially works for Electro Outlet (owned by her father, Pop Randall), which is contracted by Oaks Park to run all the game booths. Before becoming contracted in 1995, Electro Outlet would travel with other traveling carnivals all throughout the Northwest and Canada. Randall enjoys working for Oaks Park and finds the atmosphere more family-oriented.

You dont need to push people as much to play the games here. Its more of a family area. People see that what we haveI dont need to bark a game like I had to on the road.

Marilyn informed me that barking or chatting was lingo used on the road to describe the art of attracting players to your booth. She informed me that other such lingo does in fact still exist.

On the road there is all kinds of lingohowever, here at Oaks Park it is a lot different. We dont use it hardly at all.

Upon mentioning the folks over at Funtastic, Marilyn was quick to scoff and roll her eyes. She sees them as a part of many industry changes that have caused the quality of fairs to decline.

When we were traveling, we worked a few contracts with them [Funtastic], but to put it nicely, they are an extremely greedy corporation. I know Pops would never work with them again.

Marilyn further expressed sentiments of disappointment in fairs all over the Northwest, like that of the Puyallup Fair in Washington. While enjoying her job at Oaks Park, Randall sees such fairs going down the same path as Funtastic.

There has been a lot of industry change. For instance, the Puyallup Fair has dwindled since we used to work there. There is no variety anymoreits all the same games.

Jason, another employee of Oaks Park, has worked for the park for over five years and is currently a ride leader. Jason represents a new generation of employees at the fair that are unaware of Carny lingo and stray from embracing such characteristics.

There is no real lingo here. Sometimes people will call us Carnies, but were not really Carnies here. I dont associate with that at all.

When questioned about the darker, viler side of carnival life, Jason was quick to point out that a majority of the employees at Oaks Park were college students and friends of other employees. He explained that because of that aspect, things generally run relatively smooth despite a few minor problems.

We have had a few lawsuits, people trying to blame us for stuff. It never has amounted to much other than the accuser having the pay a bunch of lawyer fees.

Thus, in search of the secret life of Carnies, very little was discovered. In fact, even the word Carny seems to be in semantic recession and hardly used. However, it cannot be denied that somewhere between the bad teeth, lazy eyes and awkward social skills a clandestine band of individuals who have countless bizarre stories of outlandish debauchery still exists. Or maybe it doesnt. Maybe all Carnies now prefer the title amusement technicians, and are just trying to make a decent, honest living through an age-old form of entertainment. Either way, truthful or not, the legacy will certainly continue.