The Fairest in the Land

My hometown is home to the STATE FAIR.  Fans of old timey movies will remember the musical State Fair.-"Our State Fair is the best State Fair"...I think that's how it goes? In my memory, the local fair sort of compares... sort of.  There's livestock, pies, jellies, and out of town families that come in to the big city to win the big 4H prize and carnies. There's the freak shows and seedy characters, outrageous flirting and fights.  So not much has changed?  I guess that's comforting?  I know relatives and family that plan their visit home just so they can go to THE FAIR.

Every year I say I'm not going to go  to The Fair, but we go.   During the first week of August my house is usually 95 degrees, so of course we go where it's even HOTTER and there's people everywhere!  But there's something about it. The memories, the children, the smells, the organic heap of it all. 

Of course, I've been to the pinnacle of amusement parks several times-Disneyland-and seriously; nothing compares to that Walt magic. You're in a bubble when you're there. The world is perfect, people are perfect,children are smiling, bubbles, balloons, it's pure magic. There's nothing slimy, seedy or smelly about it. But it's not fair to make a comparison between the two. Disneyland is a fairy tale princess castle, and The Fair is vomit in a trash bin.

So why do I go to The Fair every year?  To me it's a snapshot of  the cosmic community.  Overall, it's a mass representation of what we are. Cranky kids in strollers with sunburned cheeks.A good harvest of new vegetables, garden flowers, fine rabbits and chickens; contrasted against the extreme chaos of the midway, juvenille madness, cliques and gangs, beer and greasy smells.  And those smells, oooh.  A curious cultural mix of Indian tacos, pizza, gyros, Norwegian deep fried meatballs and Bar B Que, layered with the sticky sweet fragrance of burnt caramel sugar.

So I go to The Fair because it is like life. Not all magic and bubbles in a fairy land far far away.  The Fair is real. There's truth there.  Hot and exposed, warts and all,  the tattoos, the muffin tops, wife beater shirts, mullets, piercings, diapers on the park lawn, sippy cups, and sticky hands.That harsh ride that makes you sick, noisy tractors from 1926, pungent hay, the stillness of the quilt room. There's years of memories in every building, and it takes you back.  It's the real deal baby.

They're always trying at The Fair to clean it up, pave walkways, put clean shirts on the workers and bring in Branson-type shows to "bring it up a notch." But it's the same. But there is one thing that just fixes it for me. If I'm walking down the midway, and if there's just enough money in my pocket for a Fresh Squeezed Lemonade, my life is good. And that lemonade at The Fair IS good.