Last week, I asked you readers if you had interesting fair stories to share. You sure did! (And I hope you enjoy them like I did.) Here’s what you sent me:
*****
I was talking to a friend who told me that she writes her cell phone on her children's arms whenever they attend the state fair. I thought that was such a stellar idea. As the Mr. and I were preparing for our annual pilgrimage to the fair, I grabbed the fattest permanent black marker I could find. I grabbed the 5 year old man-child and proceeded to write my husband's cell number on his arm and then on the arm of our youngest. Without having to look at my husband, I knew he was giving me the look of “seriously?”, to which I confidently replied, “Hey, you never know.” Fast forward a few hours, and we are in the midst of crowd city, headed for the milkshakes. Husband turns to me with a look of slight panic and asks, “Where's the boy?” Before I could start freaking out, his phone rings. The man on the other end says, “I have your son, and we are on the corner of such and such.” Husband looks at me, and I just shoot him a smile of “I know.”
Shantell, Maple Grove, Minnesota
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When I was fifteen years old, we moved to Prince Edward County, Virginia—the hotbed of the civil rights movement in education—but that had only served to impoverish an already historically conflict-embroiled region. The Five County Fair was testament to this.
The fair was a five-day event, school nights included. It was just at the brink of autumn, when you would want a jean jacket but often ended up slinging it around your waist until the cool of the evening, when the chill was enough for the jacket but not for the mosquitos. (The sign of an evening well spent in the South? Bug bites. But that finger nail crisscross and spit thing really does work.)
That night, my mother loaded all five of us kids in the van. We were fifteen on down to three years old and in the throes of that post-move funk that settles upon all children when the first thrill of novelty and change have worn off. My mother’s friend, a feisty lawyer woman and church friend who I was shadowing in case I wanted to be a paralegal, joined us for the trip.
The fairgrounds were set up lackadaisically in a great green field with occasional buildings marking talent shows, featuring songs like “Walking in Memphis” and sequined sister acts. I remember seeing a couple pigs and cows, but nothing like I have since experienced in southern Minnesota, where farming is a champion sport. Those high school days, I was city girlish about 4H Club and couldn’t fathom who would want to waste time fighting with a sewing machine.
A zipper ride with spiraling up-and-down seats caught my brother’s and my eye.
“You know these rides have no liability,” Lawyer Lady said. So far, she had refused to let her sons ride a single truck-mounted roller coaster or scrambler the whole evening.
My mother was less jazzed about such things and sent us on ahead with tickets. I could almost hear her lawyer friend hyperventilating as we climbed on.
With a flat affect and grizzled beard, the ride operator flicked an eye at our seat belts—a glorified high chair strap and plastic buckle configuration—and slammed the cage door down on our box. He went around in a similar fashion to the other cars, making minimal eye contact and chewing a wad of tobacco. I felt a tremor of uncertainty, but my ten-year-old little brother was with me. As the big sister, you can’t afford to lose face. Back the man went to the operation keep—and then we were off.
To this day, I remember the sick way my stomach went up to my eyeballs that first time our car flipped upside down. The ride bore us up and down and made us spin, hurtling against our flimsy seatbelts the whole way. We touched the cage ceiling at one point, and even my brother screamed. I’m fairly sure there wasn’t a dry pair of underwear anywhere on that ride.
When the cud-chewing operator flicked open the cage door upon the ride’s conclusion, we bolted out like our golden retriever puppy from her kennel when we’ve been at church too long. We were both shaking and a little giggly, and between Drew’s girlish scream and my wet underpants, we never again spoke of what went on in that box.
To the lawyer lady’s horror and my mother’s chagrin, the ride then proceeded to go up in flames, almost the second we removed ourselves from the premises.
“I TOLD YOU!” Lawyer Lady’s brown eyes were almost as wide as her sons’, watching the grizzled ride conductor climb the not-yet-on-fire portion of the zipper ride with a small home fire extinguisher. There was a slight dampening of the furor of flames, but nothing too distinguishable from the distance at which we were standing.
There were a few stray claps for heroism. Screaming persons were hustled off the ride. (No one got hurt.) And then everyone carried on eating corn dogs, including my mother.
“We were THIS CLOSE.” My breath escaped in spurts, more from the excitement of my near scrape with death than from actual fear.
“The Lord has a plan for your life,” came the response from my Mom. “Today wasn’t your day.”
A vague thought of Stonewall Jackson style fatalism flitted across my mind. But then we got funnel cakes, and I forgot all about it. It’s true when they say youth has no sense of its own mortality.
Dori, Mankato, Minnesota
