The Fair
I need to wax a little poetic about the fair. The county fair. I'm not much into the rides, but I do like walking the midway watching the rides and the people on them. The grass trampled, the crunch of the gravel. I still love to win a goldfish from the ping pong ball game. I know most of the prizes are crap, but it's still a bit of a thrill to win something. I didnt even mind holding my friends' stuff while they rode the whatever-a-tron, listening to "Thunderstruck" for the umpteenth time.
Our county fair lasted 10 days every August. From the time I was 15 to about 20, I spent most of those 10 days every year at the fair. Either working or doing FFA stuff. Even before I was 15, I volunteered, through my mom's employer, at the information booth.
My first two years, I worked as one of the garbage collectors on the swing shift. I didnt mean that I went around with garbage pokers picking up bits of napkins and cigarette butts; I mean I went to the garbage cans in my assigned area, hefted the bag of garbage out, put it in my little horsecart (where I was the horse as well) and went into the back 40 where the dumpsters were kept behind the grandstands and tried to get enough momentum to fling the heavy bag of garbage into the back of the dumpster, all while trying not to get garbage juice on me. The worst area was the carnival rides because there was always the chance vomit would be in the cans. The second worse was the food area because all the food together made for some funky juice. And there was no wearing gloves back then, or really any other protective gear. The best areas were the exhibit halls, barns and grandstands: not much heavy, juicy trash and lots of cool stuff to look at. I dont know how I put up with it for two years, from about noon to 11pm. One year it rained so hard, some areas were flooding so we were taken off of garbage and put on ditch digging duty. I saw some decent big-ish name bands and artists back when they booked entertainment that were household names for the nightly grandstand entertainment. The floor in front of the stage was always ticketed, but if you didnt mind sitting in the bleachers (grandstands) that was free. My lunch break happened to coincide with part of the show time and the break room just happened to be under the grandstands. I met the old rodeo cowboy and country singer Chris LeDoux during this job. Me and my partner for the day had grandstand/barn duty, we went up to the stage, behind the fence, emptied the garbage, talked to the security officer for a minute asking if Mr LeDoux was a nice guy, etc, when the man himself waved us on up. I dont remember exactly what we talked about, it's a bit of a blur, probably asked how he was doing and if he liked our town, etc. We only talked for a minute or two, then thanked him, got his autograph, thanked him again and left back to work. The next day we got in trouble with our supervisor. There wasnt really an expressed rule not to go beyond the fence into the stage area until after that incident. I dont know who complained because Mr LeDoux invited us up himself, but the guy who was my work partner took the fall for both of us and got fired. After that, the stage was completely off limits.
The same partner, also volunteered for the sheriff's department to demonstrate a taser they were selling. A small crowd, mostly comprised of other teenage workers, gathered on a grassy knoll outside the vendor's hall. When the sherrif's deputy tased my partner and he just blinked at the deputy, we all were slackjawed. then my partner grabbed the taser, turned it up and tased himself on the arm. When he didnt drop, most of us gasped or laughed and murmured about how it didnt work. the deputy was shocked and the next day, the booth was empty. The sheriff's department took the tasers off the market.
My other years at the fair, I spent doing FFA stuff. For a few years I raised lambs. We had to muck out the barns late into the night after open class, then had to be back the next morning with our animals for weigh-in. I raised and showed market lambs. Food. Despite my naming them (Milo, one year, Otis the next) I didnt get worked up when it was time for them to become food. We had to put up educational displays about our project of raising a lamb, talk to judges, talk to the public if they had questions, along with all the regular caring of the animals. Feeding, mucking, repeat. We had to wash our lambs and have them completely dry before show time, both for conformation, where they judged the lamb itself for breed conformity and quality, and for fitting and showing where they judged the exhibitor on how well they could make their lamb look. I learned that if you used too much bluing, instead of making your white fleece bright white, it would actually be blue. I usually stuck with a clear or white soap such as Ivory dish soap. Remember you have to wash their armpits really well because lots of dirt, lanolin and sweat sticks in there. On really dirty lambs, some people would come out with handfuls of stinky gunk. Mine werent all that bad. I learned how to trim hooves, but I didnt generally like being kicked and accidentally drawing blood so I kept the hooves down by taking my lambs for walks on concrete. I also learned a little how to use the electric and manual fleece shears, but the adults mostly did the main shear and us kids used the old fashioned manual ones for detail work. I was pretty good at handling a sheep without a halter. I spent from about 730 or 8am to about 1030pm at the fair with my lambs. I'd take breaks and go futz around, of course but I loved sitting in the barns. I didnt mind the manure smell, I loved being with my animals. I would even sometimes let them eat whatever I had, usually a french fry or two, part of an elephant ear, oreos. My first, Milo, had good conformation but was slightly underweight so I didnt actually get to do the confirmation show. But I was able to do fitting and showing and I kept winning each class. Another novice girl and I ended up beating out all of the other kids and ended up in the Round Robin, where the top two exhibitors from each species (lambs, dairy cows, beef, poultry, swine and rabbits at the time) had to show each animal in the round. I hated showing pigs, I still dont get the method to the madness, and I had to show the one that was sunburnt and mad as hell about it. I showed my friend's steer, and it fractured my foot. While I was showing another animal, I heard "Milo, NO!" and see out of the corner of my eye, Milo had bolted. I couldnt react. I had to let him go. They caught him and while I didnt get anything for it, I ended up scoring third overall. Because Milo was underweight he couldnt go to auction. My mom's employers ended up paying for the slaughterhouse and butcher fees and were going to 'donate it to a poor family'....apparently we were that poor family. I realized it when mom tried to pass off stew meat as being beef and I knew it wasnt. I didnt mind, I had raised Milo to be a tasty tasty little lamb. My second, Otis, made weight and won best in his class for confirmation but I had severely sprained my ankle a few days before and was in a lot of pain so fitting and showing was a bust.
For a few years after that, I was on break from university and was more of a student advisor for the sheep group one year and horses the next. I'm extremely proud of those kids in the sheep group. One geeky, skinny, shy kid who was also a novice ended up with absolute best in show. That is the highest honor given to a single exhibitor out of all the animals with confirmation and fitting and showing, and your public presence, and round robin, etc for all of FFA AND 4H. This kid blew everyone out of the water. I remember since I wasnt showing, but advising, I took the kids through practice show rounds again and again. The day of his first show at fair, I told him randomly that I was going to pass off my novice luck to him so he would do well then smacked him on the forehead. I dont know if I literally knocked some confidence into him or what, but Best In Show says it all. It was goofy things like that, that made for random fun at the fair.
I've also tried entering the occasional photo into the open class art exhibits. I never did very well in those. But I liked studying the exhibits, I liked getting free salsa from the salsa maker seller guy. I liked doing the handwriting sample analysis in the big machine that had lots of lights and went "ding!" I liked the fortunes told by the old gypsy lady. I liked that the hot tub sellers would let the ffa kids take a soak in the display model after closing time...but in hindsight it might have been a little creepy. I didnt partake of the hot tub, I was too embarrassed. I liked looking at the prized jams and floral designs. I liked getting my peach milkshake from the Dairy Women's booth. I liked wandering the vendors booths, inspecting the wares. I liked the fair food, the corndogs, kettle corn, baked potatoes, pie, breakfast at the Chicken House, bbq chicken at the Chicken House, fresh lemonade. I liked the smell of hay. I liked the clip-clop of the horse patrol's horses hooves. I liked the racing piglets. I liked the random Andes flute music players.
I love the fair.