Great Moments in Journalism: One of Us
Great Moments in Journalism are submitted by readers, and can be sent to this address. You hear "Charlie LeDuff covers a freak show" and you know you're pretty likely to get a Great Moment out of it. And here you go, from the profile of "Ward Hall, the King of the Midway":
Instead he has spent his life on the road, most of it with his disheveled, mutton-chopped, chain-smoking business partner, Chris Christ, 58, and with Poobah, the 3-foot-7-and-a-quarter-inch dwarf who, after eating 100 skewers of fire a day, 12 hours a day, seven days a week for five decades, has no eyebrows or eyelashes to speak of, giving him the look of a pale jack-o'-lantern. Poobah has a knot on his forehead, wears a hearing aid the size of a bagel, has low blood pressure and speaks with a deep, incomprehensible gurgle. Clearly, fire has taken its toll.
Step Right Up, Ladies and Gents, to See the End of an Oddity [NYT]