Carnieville
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“It was a way of life,” Judy says. “To me it was normal.”Gibsonton was the half lady, the giant, the anatomical wonder, the fat man, lobster boy, fire breathers, sword swallowers, dare devils, freaks and carnies. Gibsonton was trailer upon trailer, accented by Ferris wheels, ride parts and elephants. To outsiders, Gibsonton was as shocking as a nail being hammered straight up the nose.
“It was a great place to grow up,” Judy says.
In its heyday, Gibsonton, a small town just south of Tampa, was the stomping ground of the country's most notorious sideshow freaks, carnival workers and circus performers. They rested their weary bodies from months on the road. Here they fished, fixed their rides, worked on their acts and repainted their signs. Gibsonton's legend lies in the showmen.
The legend began with the “world's strangest couple” in the 1930s. Al Tomaini, the 8-foot 4-inch giant, and his wife Jeanie, the 2-foot 6-inch half woman, were on vacation in Tampa when they fell in love with the area surrounding the Alafia River. Judy remembers her Dad saying the fishing was so good you could walk across the river on the fish’s backs without getting your feet wet.
The Tomaini's came to Gibsonton for more than great fishing. They also came for the sunny Florida weather. “They decided it sure beat the snow in New Jersey in the winters,” Judy says.
Tired of the road and snow, Al and Jeanie decided to buy land next to the Alafia River, sell their sideshow and make Gibsonton their permanent home. The first thing Al built on the land was a bait shop. Frank Lentini, the three-legged man, named the shop “Giant's Camp” after its 356-pound owner. Throughout the years, Al added a trailer park, motel, marina, restaurant and bar.
Not only did Al add this social center to Gibsonton, but he also donated a fire truck, an ambulance and created the town's first fire house because garden hoses just weren't enough anymore. He also donated his family's furniture and clothing to a family who lost everything in a fire. In his time off, he and Jeanie would make free appearances at different store openings and other events in the town. They gave as much as they could to Gibsonton and its residents.
The restaurant and the Tomainis' good reputation brought other showmen-from carnivals, sideshows and circuses-out to Gibsonton. Legions of performers migrated down south and made Gibsonton their retreat from harsh winters and tumultuous months on the road.
“The locals were uncertain when the show people came around,” Judy says. “They saw all the equipment rolling in and were completely taken aback when they started seeing the size and shapes of the new tenants in town.”
Margaret Ingram, 76, has lived in Gibsonton for 54 years and has been the main chef at Giant's Camp Restaurant for almost four decades. Spending every day at the town's most central and popular restaurant meant seeing Gibsonton's strangest tenants. The Lobster Boy and his children, whose feet and hands all formed claw-like pinchers, would come into the restaurant often. Margaret says she also remembers the Bearded Lady, the Leopard Man and little Petey the dwarf.
“Even though their bodies were different, you never thought about it because they were good people,” Margaret says. “I was never afraid of any of them.”
Margaret, whose biscuits still keep people coming in, says the showmen have always been very pleasant to get along with. They even made her an honorary member of the Showmen’s Club despite her trade being in baked goods, not sword swallowing or nail hammering.
Bill Rodgers has called Gibsonton his home for 44 years because of the town's pleasant character. His 18 years on the road with circuses and carnivals in an aerial show and a bird act made him a typical Gib-towner. Like many in the business, Rodgers came to Gibsonton for the reasonably priced land, the sense of community and the town's unique zoning. The town has show business zoning that allows its residents to have a Ferris wheel in the front yard and elephants in the back yard. Most showmen come to Gibsonton for that privilege. Where else could they store their funnel cake carts and trapeze equipment?
The only complaints about the unique zoning have been from non-carnival neighbors. Rodgers says whenever a tiger or lion escaped there was always a rush to the commissioners to try and pass a law, but to this day nothing has changed. Other complaints come from newer residents who move in while the circuses and carnival workers are on the road.
“A lot of people are coming here in the summer time and buying places," Rodgers says. "They don't realize they’re going to have rides or carnival people next door to them or maybe an elephant.”
Rodgers says this doesn't happen as much anymore. And outsiders aren't as curious anymore. In the 30s and up until the 70s, when Gibsonton had its most dense population of “freaks,” people would go on expeditions to the small town in hopes of spotting a bona fide freak. Rodgers never understood why.
“To me, the freaks that I knew were not freaks. They were just human beings trying to make a living, and they were exhibiting themselves because that was a way of making a living,” he says. “Sure they were different, but everybody is a little different then somebody else.”
Now, when sight seekers drive into Gibsonton to gawk at the freaks, they leave sorely disappointed, because Gibsonton is changing. For the most part the sideshow people that made this town unique are gone.
Rodgers says, “The older people, who helped found the [Showmen’s] club and found the town, are deceased,”
Al Tomaini was the first. He died in 1962 when Judy was 16. He was 50. Judy remembers how upsetting his death was and how many people were affected by it. She recalls her Dad's procession being three miles long.
Jeanie was next. When Judy's mom died in 1999, she didn't want a tent, Astroturf or even chairs. She just wanted the lowering device, the burial vault and some help from her friends and family. She asked them to forget their black dresses and suits and hoped they'd be willing to sweat a little.
“I told them all ahead of time, wear jeans and bring a shovel.”
Once the diggers had lowered Jeanie into the vault and set the lid they handed Judy a shovel. Judy began to throw heaping mounds of dirt over the vault. Her daughter grabbed a shovel and started to help. The rest followed.
Judy says it's a tradition for grave diggers to always rake the foot prints off a new grave. But when they called for the rake Judy said no. She knew her mother would rather keep the footprints her friends and family had made while putting her to rest. So the zigzag shovel marks and shoe prints were left. Beneath them lie the half woman and with her an entire era.
“When Mother died, a whole generation went with her, and now we are dying off one at a time,” Judy says. “Now street bums have taken over, along with the rough necks that set up the rides and run them.”
And the fishing that brought so many showmen out to the area, Judy says, is gone.
“The fishing is about nonexistent as a nearby plant dumps hazardous waste in the river and has killed off about everything, including the people that have lived here so long,” she says.
Giant's Camp, the foundation of Gibsonton, has had a few hits as well. In 1997, Judy says, they were refused their lease to the marina and the bait house. The bait house was the first building at Giant's Camp and a place where the men would meet to visit and tell fishing lies.
"That was a landmark," Judy says. "But it seems, the vice president of Cargill wanted to push us out and since we wouldn't sell him the camp, he took half of our livelihood."
What used to be about 80 percent showmen in Gibsonton is now only 5 percent, Judy says.
Rodgers thinks that's because carnivals and circuses are changing too. Being on the road is not as lucrative as it once was. The cost of gas has gone up, the cost of rides and insurance has gone up. Organizations like PETA are threatening to wipe out all animal shows. Rodgers says the business is rough, and it's a hard way to earn a living. And now showmen are competing with more than just the weather.
"There are so many amusement parks around town and so much for people to do," he says. "Forty years ago you didn't have TV shows like you do now, you didn't have the Internet…you didn't have the big movie theaters with 12 screens."
But Rodgers says there are still a few in Gibsonton who go on the road every year with the carnivals. They come back around November and once again carnival rides and funnel cake stands sprawl across Gibsonton. In January, the town gathers to create a fundraising circus for the community.
Rodgers also does his part in keeping the memory of the circus and sideshow alive. For 26 years he has been selling gloves, make-up, beads, sequins and other circus paraphernalia to residents, Ringling Bros. and markets around the country. Walk into his store and you're bombarded with circus posters; figurines of glittered women on elephants; and hundreds of rolls of cloth, sequins and beads for costume making. He says people are still buying circus-ware for their shows, but business has been slow.
Judy also does her best to pass down the sideshow tradition. She taught her daughter and her grandson everything she was taught while growing up in Gibsonton. Her daughter can do the block head, where you hammer nails in and up your nose. Her grandson knows all the working acts like sword swallowing, fire eating and the block head like his mother. He is recognized as the world's youngest sword swallower.
"I built a beautiful bed of nails and sword ladder for my grandson Alexzander, who I taught what my Dad taught me," Judy says. "I felt like if I didn't share and pass it on the whole thing would die, and I don't like change."
But Judy is going to have to get used to change. Because for now, Gibsonton is the Showtown Restaurant and Bar where red-shirted waitresses dole out greasy cheeseburgers and soggy fries. People named Frog start drinking at 2:14 p.m. underneath a specialty license plate that reads, "CARNIE." It's the Giant's Camp restaurant where Mrs. Margaret serves her famous biscuits to a crowd of blue collared workers. And it's the museum and showmen's club, which are thirsting for a fresh coat of paint.
Gibsonton is a few glimmering sequins like Billy Rodgers and Judy Tomaini Rock. And when the road warriors get tired of stampeding across the country and when they get tired of bringing cotton candy, funnel cakes and whirl-o-wind puke machines to the public, Gibsonton will be returned to a land of mountainous lime-green and hot-pink ride parts and shimmering Ferris wheels. But anyone who's been in Gibsonton long enough will tell you it's just not the same.