FACES of MAINE
Who are the people in Maine? What is life like? This photographic series introduces you to a few "Mainers" and gives you a view into a moment of their lives.
RUSSELL THOMPSON
Staff photo and caption by Gregory Rec
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"Five tickets for five dollars!"
Ponytailed teen-age girls nibbling at candy apples giggle as they pass. A couple pushing a baby stroller with creaking plastic wheels smile at each other knowingly.
"Five tickets for five dollars!"
Russell Thompson is anything but shy about his business of selling tear tickets from his booth on the midway at the Fryeburg Fair. Every 10 seconds or so, he bellows his mantra above the carnival din, beckoning risk-takers to his mecca of chance.
"Five tickets for five dollars!"
People may find him amusing, but Thompson says the strategy works. He claims he sells more tear tickets, which are akin to scratch lottery tickets, than any other seller at the carnival.
"I'm the top tear-ticket guy here," he says. "Ain't nobody can cut into me."
Thompson, 89, joined the carnival 16 years ago for something to do after his wife died.
"What was I going to do, hang around the house? I had to do something," he says.
Thompson is from Harrison, but he spends most of the year in his camper, traveling to different fairs around New England from spring through fall. In the winter, he heads to Florida to work carnivals in the South.
"Five tickets for five dollars!"
A woman stops at the booth, pushes a dollar at Thompson and asks for one ticket. A few seconds later, a man stops and buys five tickets. He opens them above a garbage barrel on the side of Thompson's booth and comes up with a $5 winner. He exchanges the ticket for five more but the second round produces no jackpot.
A light rain starts to fall, thinning out the crowd along the midway. As the overcast sky grows purple with dusk, Thompson's mantra falls silent and he sits dejectedly in his booth. There is no one left on the midway for him to cajole.
He cocks his head upward, looking at the dark sky through the scratched Plexiglas of his booth.
"They say it's supposed to rain straight through Friday," he says. "It's no good. It's no good."
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