He Lived To Tell About It

Kruse with an Encounter: BROOKSVILLE – Dan Weaver was telling stories outside his food trailer called The Olde Smokehouse the other day at the Hernando County Fair. He's 55. Sometimes he lives in Gibsonton and sometimes in Ohio, but mainly he stays in the camper he pulls with his van. He talked for a good long while.

He talked about his signature Amish Dagwood sandwich – home-cooked bacon, ham and hard salami and three different kinds of cheese on a six-inch hoagie roll. He talked about how it weighs almost a pound and how one time a guy ate two whole Dagwoods and a part of a third before he had to quit.

He talked about how he started running carnival rides in 1968. About how he started buying some rides in '70. About how he sold some rides in '76.

About how in '77 he got the trailer and started making the Dagwood.

He talked about how life on the road can be a drag but how he can't give it up because he likes to see different people and do different things.

And then, after all that, he talked about what happened to him at a little fair in Austintown, Ohio, in the summer of '78.