It's All Good

We went to the state fair last Saturday.  Now, that’s nothing spectacular, as a whole lot of folks go to the fair every year.  You may have gone.  We’ve gone to the fair most of the years of our married life, and I attended the fair as a teen with the high school band.  So it’s something we are very familiar with, and enjoy each year.

Of course, there are the old stand-by things at the fair that haven’t changed much over the years.  The Old Mill, Pronto Pups, chicken & noodle dinners, Lake Talbot, Porky’s sandwiches, the vendors under the grandstand; the farm equipment, antique tractors and engines, Kettle Korn and sales pitches; cattle, horses, rabbits, llamas, chickens & ducks…it’s all there.  But there are some newer attractions as well.  The sky lift ride, the talking robot, the zip line across Lake Talbot; all are newer things that have worked well and will probably be part of the fair landscape for years to come.

We, of course, have our traditions.  The train ride, giant slide, Old Mill, ice cream under the grandstand, and other things consume much of our time as we roam the fairgrounds.  The wife likes to look at the quilt exhibits as well as wander through the commercial buildings.  I like to see the antique tractors and engines and look at some of the farm equipment.

This year there was an auction of wood art going on at the arena, so I stopped and watched for about 30 minutes, listening to the cadence of the auctioneers, watching the ring men working the crowd.  I had no intention of buying anything…much too pricey for me.  But I enjoy going to an auction just to see and hear.  It reminds me of the days Dad and I would stop by the livestock auction in Harper where auctioneer extraordinaire Bill Starks would be auctioning pens of cattle and Gerald Smalley was one of the ring men barking out bids along with DeRoy Fields and others from time to time.  Sometimes Dad would buy…sometimes he would sell.  Sometimes he would just observe.  Often he’d talk with one of the other cattlemen there or maybe with Gerald or even Tom Minton, the owner of the sale.

Dad had his own way of buying and selling.  He never wanted to have others know too much about what he did, so he often asked Gerald to put in bids for him up to a certain price.  Sometimes he trusted Gerald and Tom to the point that he’d just tell them he needed so many head of whatever weight and ask them to buy for him what they thought would work for him at a price that was fair.

When it came time to sell, often Tom would call Dad and tell him he needed a few head to fill out a truck load or an order for so many at a certain weight.  And he needed them right then.  So the selling often was a last-minute thing, but the price was always right because of the need Tom had to fill out an order and his knowing that Dad’s livestock were in good shape.

Although that was long ago and far away, those memories are just as fresh as they were 40 or 50 years ago.  Just as the fair itself has within its borders memories of walking the midway, stopping by the Channel 12 booth, and browsing through the commercial buildings listening to hawkers sell pots and pans, knives, cleaning stuff, and goodness knows whatever else.

And hopefully, we are instilling in the grandkids memories of their own that they can call upon and relish in as they grow and mature…memories of cotton candy, the interactive fountains, helicopter rides, the Ferris wheel with Grandma, and the giant log plume water ride with Grandpa.

It’s all good.