Hi all, I have spent way too much time the last few days reading all of this. This is my first post, and probably no others will be this long. I have been going to SDC since the mid-60's, but have a different perspective than most here. My mother has been working at the Fall Crafts Festival for 42 years in a row. At one time we had four generations in the booth, the oldest generation has passed, the fourth generation is about to produce a fifth generation, which will surely grow up at SDC like so many have. I believe my mom is the senior person at the fall festival. Violet Hensley started a year or two before my mom, but Violet missed a couple of years when her husband died. Many here have seen and known my family for perhaps decades, but in my adult life, I was always the guy that blew in for setup-teardown and a few days in-between.
My mom is Jewel Sanders, "the cornshuck doll lady". My sister Susie Sanders-Everhart has been there nearly every time as well. Youngest sister Sherry Sanders-Walters has only missed a few.
My family grew up farming, my dad is third generation grain/cattle farmer in Central MO, north of Columbia. Jewel was always intensely creative, some of the best memories I have are of her always making things, always busy with everything. My dad, Nevelle Sanders is very clever (though he will always be self-deprecating), very wise, and makes a good balance to Jewel's flights of fancy. The two are a wonderful couple, and are coming up on 60 years of marriage!
My recent memories of SDC are of the all-night setups, the oddity of seeing every street packed with cars/trucks at night, the M/C guys working third shift every night to make it good for the next day. In the fall, I think they hose down every street, every night. The fall foliage will be very slippery when left for the guests the next day.
Here are some of my random memories, in no particular order.
When I was a kid, we started out as tourists. I was fascinated with the glass blowers, Grandpa Brown seeming to dip his hand into the boiling candy to "pick up a sample", and hand it to us. It took us years to figure out that he cupped a bit of cold water in his hand, dropped it into the taffy and pulled up that freshly solidified sample. Last fall, we saw his wife, she is so cool. I don't know how old she is now, but I thought she was old in the 1960's. She is probably very old now, but you can't tell it by talking to her.
As an adult, I became mechanically oriented (it was the decades of farm work), but one of my personal lures over the decades is the Slow Tom Mill. While the real mill had all sorts of belts and gears pretending to turn it, the stoic simplicity and reliability of Slow Tom still makes me stop and watch for a few cycles. It's just basic physics, and as long as the water keeps running, it will keep doing it.
The suspension bridge puzzles me to this day, when people can't walk on it? As long as I can remember, it's easy to get the rhythm and just spring along with it.
As a child, I remember the tree house only as Herman the Hermit's. Now that I'm old(er), I don't ride the rides as much. When I was young, the Lost River was good for sparking with the other craftsmen's daughters. In the dark part.......
The rising table in 'dine in the mine' never happened to us, but it was always fun watching That Spot for their reaction. In the early 80's, I was taken with Big Jack's sandwich at Mary's Pies so much, I would buy four of them to take home. One quarter sandwich was a good lunch.
Wayne Milnes (undertaker, street scenes, Sammy B. Good, Mechanical Man, Corncrib Theater, Hatfield Haint, and more) is one of the funniest humans ever to draw breath. Every day, all day at SDC he never broke character. If you ran into him at the employee lounge, he still crossed his eyes at you and made goofy sounds.
Terry Sanders (no relation) drew a lot of his basic character from Wayne's early improvs. To this day, when we go see Terry at a show, he will call my mom up on stage and make up something about his long-lost relative. Terry is one of the hardest-working men in show business!
The Corncrib Theater was a long-time favorite for my family, and my mom's later business of cornshucks was called The Corn Crib. We were real farmers, and there used to be wire-mesh corn cribs on our farm and all around, so it seemed fitting.
Wayne and Shad were so good together. Even back then, when the 65 and 76 junction was a 4-way stop in downtown Branson, there would occasionally be a loud car go by the Corncrib Theater. Wayne and Shad would both drop their line in mid-sentence, make a big gazing "left to right" while following it, then drop back into the next line when it was gone.
The cave has always fascinated me. I grew up on the Missouri prairie, and once wanted to dig a cave on our farm. My dad, knowing that black dirt doesn't do caves well, let me use his best shovel and wear myself out for a few days trying. He even helped fill it in, when three feet was all I accomplished. The cave guides are a unique breed, another kind of showmen all of their own. Unlike performers in any other show, they have to be keeping an eye on their audience for signs of claustrophobia, shortness of breath, trying to gauge who is really afraid of the dark, etc.
No matter how large a monument man tries to build to whatever all the things that men build monuments for, the caves silently and gracefully always overcome with their sheer grandeur and beauty. Most of this beauty has existed for millions of years, back when the dinosaurs were pups.
I am a musician of sorts, and auditioned for the first piano player in the saloon's first season. I was primarily a player by ear, and flubbed the audition by not practicing enough. Oddly enough, my sister Susie is a great ragtime player and plays from music, she probably would have done better.
I thought i was deeply in love with Jana Henleben for years. She was great in the Corncrib Theater, saloon girl, street character, etc. I never spoke with her, even when she picked me out of the audience at a Hatfield Haint show to be on stage. I recall I did something silly, and everybody on stage ad-libbed from it. She smiled, and then it seemed like the right thing to do at the time after all.
My dad retired from farming about ten years ago, and hired Horse Creek to drive 250 miles to play at his retirement party.
For a few years, my dad Nevelle and I had a booth making miniature bales. We started in the DeepWoods area, did it on the square one year, and also hired a friend to run it a season or two. There still is a sub-miniature baler in my mom's booth in recent years, Nevelle operates it.
Since we are flatlanders, it takes us a few days to get used to traversing the hills. I can't remember their names, but in the 1980s there were twin sisters that were citizen/employees. They were probably in their 70's at the time. They grew up there, and they just zoomed up and down SDC's hills all day. They made our calf muscles hurt just watching them.
I enjoyed watching some of the Youtube vids that you guys have found, thanks for linking to them. In the 60's one with the two crewcut young boys, I believe that marshall is Ralph L. Hooker. There was a book by him available in the print shop, Born Out of Season. He was a true old-time pioneer and actual lawman. His book is full of stories about his life. Later in life, he was a marshall at SDC, and according to his book, his Colt 45 hogleg had live rounds. He was also a sharpshooter. In his book he said that he fired his gun once at SDC. There were some young men being extremely rude and loud, and making fun of some girls. I haven't read it for several years, but it went along the lines of he tossed the young man's hat in the air and shot it. In the street. At SDC. I don't believe that would work today. The young men became very quiet and polite.
I loved the River Rats. DA, Greg, and Richard only vaguely recognize me because of me only being there occasionally, and mostly during the festival, I am "that guy that kind of looks familiar". The Smith Brothers offshoot was great. Whenever I see DA, I ask him to play the Smith Brothers' big hit, "If You Hurt Me, I Will Kill You". He always looks puzzled, and mumbles something about maybe next time.
Forum members here that are employees have another whole set of behind the scenes memories than I do. Regular guest have another whole set of experiences, that I haven't had for a long time. I'm glad to find this place. My mom has been online for 20 years, she is quite an internet junkie, I will have to get her on here as well.
Some of my best times now at SDC are just sitting and people-watching. I'm not up on what all the new rides and sections really are. As long as I can hear the train whistle, smell some woodsmoke and hear bluegrass, that makes it for me.
Another amazing thing about my parents? Even though we never have been "real" employees, we get some of the discounts. Many shows give a comp pass or a discount to the music shows. A couple of years ago, my parents attended TWENTY FIVE SHOWS during the festival. This is when they are in their 70's, this is AFTER they have put in a twelve hour day.
The title of my post, is from my mom 20 years ago. We had put in a long day/night setting up, and decided to see a show. My mom, in her exhaustion told the girl at the ticket counter: "Yes, we work at Silver Dollar City. We are Craftival Festmen". It's been a long running joke in my family.
