Going through memories at the fair

The great thing about a county fair is that it isn’t just about this week. It’s about all the county fair memories from years gone by, about the traditions, the rituals, and the rites of passage.
When I walk around the midway or through the 4-H barns, dozens of other Jay County Fairs echo through my mind.
I remember:
•The old Tri-Kappa stand that the sorority had when I was a kid. It stood near where the merry-go-round has been placed in recent years. My mother was in Tri-Kappa, and on Tuesday nights during fair week, when my dad was at Rotary, we’d have supper at the Tri-Kappa stand.
•My first “Chinese handcuffs” or whatever they’re called, the woven bamboo tube that traps your fingers. Mine was a prize at the duck pond game, and on the way home from the fair I thought I was going to be stuck in the darned thing the rest of my life.
•Walking or riding a bike to the fair. If walking, we’d stop at Green’s Grocery Store across from the Haynes Mill on Votaw Street for something cool to drink on the way.
•The Caterpillar, a ride that featured a canvas cover that emerged and put everyone aboard in the dark as centrifugal force squeezed us and the ride speeded up.
•Endless trips around the midway in high school when the primary purpose was to meet girls.
•Standing on the chest of a dwarf who was lying in a bed of glass at a sideshow. (I can still hear the barker shouting: “Stand on the little man’s chest.”)
•Winning a huge stuffed teddy bear at the mouse game. I gave it to the first pretty girl I saw.
•Riding the Himalaya with my daughters when they were little.
•Braving the true double Ferris wheel that was part of the midway once in the 1980s. When my wife and I were in the top car on the top wheel, we were higher than the tallest tree at the fairgrounds.
•My first assignment as photographer for the newspaper at the 4-H livestock auction. Frank Kenyon had done the job for years, but some time before he retired I took over to give him a break from the heat. In those days, it was all film, of course. So it was a high-pressure assignment.
You had to get the picture, and you didn’t know if you got it until the film was processed in the darkroom. Digital photography has eliminated all that stress.
•A lucky streak for a couple of years in the countless raffles and drawings at the fair. I still use a set of screwdrivers that I won, but I’ve never used a set of pipe wrenches I won a year later.
•Getting my first stockholders’ pass. At some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s, my mother transferred her share of stock to me. It had belonged to my grandfather before my mother, and it may have belonged to my great-grandfather, Judge Haynes, before that.
As I said, the echoes keep on coming.
And I expect to add to them again this year.
You can too. Have a great fair.[[In-content Ad]]