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Carleton making up for his role in "Fearless Fagan." Oddly enough, at 13 he left home and joined a carnival.
IF CARLETON CARPENTER had ever been afraid of anything in all his twenty-six years, he might never have left Bennington, Vermont, at all! Why, he was born to live and die where all the Carpenters had been born and some had died . . . where the years went on pleasantly and evenly . . . where you walked down the main street and you knew everyone. You visited with the man who ran the grocery store, the man who ran the book store, and the man who owned the drugstore. Your father knew his father before him. They were staunch and rugged as the fir trees . . . pioneer stock, the backbone of America, upholders of tradition, holding steadfast to a nostalgic, gracious past with stubborn pride. In such a town, everyone knew everyone. They had known everything about your heritage long before you came along. You had your place in the community and that's where you stayed — living a good, respectable, uneventful, pleasant little life.
'I was afraid it would happen to me," said the lanky, six-foot-four, ever restless young New Englander. "So I ran away from home when I was thirteen years old and joined a carnival. I called myself Professor Upham and I did a magic act which I had been perfecting for years. This was my first taste of show business . . . the honky-tonk music, the merry-go-round, the cotton candy, the wonderful and exciting jugglers, the death-defying trapeze artists, and all the fascinating
"If you're afraid of anything, you'll never try anything." That's fearless Carleton Carpenter's motto.
side shows. These people came from a different world,
and I knew then that Bennington, Vermont, was
going to lose one Carpenter after having so many
generations of them around. I think my
family was a little worried about me. I was not
growing up according to tradition and in a
small town, everyone worries about what the neighbors
think about you. I'm sure my mother felt that it
was just 'Summer madness' and that I'd
be back home when the Summer was over, and
ready to go back to school in the Fall."
So after a Summer with the carnival, Professor Upham became iust plain (Please turn to page 65)
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