If you were a kid in Hawaii in the 60s and 70s, this was our version of Disneyland's E Tickets. E. K. Fernandez traveling carnivals would set up at different high schools, parking lots or fairgrounds on a regular circuit. If you wanted to ride the bumper cars, shoot some skeet or grind some sugar-crusted malasadas, then you needed these pre-paid ticket coupons we called "scrip." These particular tickets are from the 1971 50th State Fair, of which the rides were only part of the extensive exhibitions and attractions. Unlike the small E. K. Fernandez traveling carnivals, the 50th State Fair was large enough to attract international sideshow carnies and famous freaks. But the local carnivals were staples of our teen-aged landscape. Does anyone remember The Old Mill fun house? This was The Haunted Mansion, local-style: a dark walk-through with padded rubber floors, colored lights, and skeleton scares that were always more imagination than reality. Woe to the kid who ran out of scrip. -- Keone Goss
