2007 Literary Nonfiction: Who’s the Fairest of Them All?
One state fair attendee realizes it is time to stop sowing memories and to start reaping reality.
The leaves are just beginning to change colors. They are not quite ready to give up the ghost on their summery green leaves. But browns, reds and yellows stick out like premature grey hairs on a young man. The sky, once shielding itself in a veil of clouds, begins to slowly strip its fluffy coat for twilight. The rotund, topaz moon peers over the horizon, inspecting each of the million Georgia pines. It is a beautiful weekend, gorgeous enough for a two-hour drive to Perry, Georgia. This is the time of year for full harvest moons, falling leaves and agricultural exhibits. This is state fair season! Like college football, Georgia State Fair is inhaled into the nostrils like the tantalizing aroma of tailgating grilled goodness and swirled through your blood vessels like brain-freezing, cherry 7-11 slush until it settles in your heart. It pauses there for a second, loads up more passengers, and zips like rollercoaster through your soul.
As an avid state fair attendee, I work my way around the fair, casing the joint in a fierce crime scene investigation manner. After entering the ticket booth, I swing a hard left to the main exhibit hall. This is where they harbor the fugitive archives of 4-H exhibits and crafts from fairs prior. Reminiscent of exhibits I once displayed when I was a girl, they remain the same: lightning effects, animal feed versus table scraps, recycling, energy conservation, etc. The appointment with state fair past is interrupted by the waft of livestock stench. I break through the lines of vacationing farmers and nomadic families to the animal exhibits.
God knows you never eat before visiting the animals. Off to the side lays a splash of undigested funnel cake and corn dog splayed on the ground like a decaying dead body. I step over it carefully. No one wants that mixture on a brand new pair of Skechers. The gory smell expands as you got closer to the kennels — Pigs. One tends to hurry through the pig display because of the smell. Onward, I walk to the goats, with their alienesque features: long head with two big orbs and a little mouth that makes the most awful, whiny noise. Cows are my favorite animals. They fan their wide bodies with a whip-like tail, docile and steadily chewing. I slice up each one with a mental blue USDA ink as to what parts were which.
Emerging from the rows of animals I’d like for my teeth to maul to bits, I decide it is time to consume a beast. My prey of choice is … what else … a polish sausage dog, wearing a warm comforter of grilled onions, bell peppers and mustard. In between chewing and swallowing, a rinse of Coke creates a mudslide of chewed bits for my stomach to finish off. Sometimes I think I come to the state fair just to eat. I do not want to take the grueling hour to prepare this same feast on a grill.
Walking turns into a cross-country endurance trial after a polish sausage dog. However, I make my way towards the midway. The prizes are irrefutably retro. Mirrors bear the image of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Beyonce or Maroon 5. The same mirrors in the 80’s were diagonally etched in latex with Michael Jackson’s face, Def Leppard’s insignia or Bon Jovi’s name. The stuffed animals get larger each time. The gargantuan, pink teddy bears are equivalent to the “bling” of a five-carat diamond ring. It has always been a time-honored tradition to receive a giant Scooby Doo (minus the trademarked S and the actual words “Scooby Doo”) from the captain of the basketball team to his trophy cheerleader girlfriend. In my family, girls with large stuffed animals are prone to be ensnared by teen pregnancy. I never will have use for stuffed animals.
It is hard to tell a difference in the rides. There are some new ones and some old favorites. My body is not what it used to be. I am too old and weak to withstand the g-force orbit of the Gravitron. It is a spinning, top-like, gravitational pull ride. Who would want to risk the nauseating effect of being wrung out like laundry in the spin cycle? I get motion sickness in a car on the way to work! In my youth, I would sit in the Zipper, a flipping, wire cage ride that perform somersaults. I would beg for more. Now, I have claustrophobia in a two-door car. While I still love the feeling of falling, I will not risk it on the Sea Dragon. The Sea Dragon is a huge pirate ship set in motion like a pendulum. The effect is the riding of large storm waves on the open seas. Too many stomach flips during my alcoholic college days warn me to not even try it. Besides, did I mention I just ate a funnel cake?
Low and behold before me stands the epitome of survival warrior rites. The Super Loop! As a child I prayed for height, just to be “This Tall” to ride this ride. With hypothesized fear of sliding from the guardrail or plummeting to my death, my teeny child body stood on the sidelines watching the Super Loop. Of all the unlimited rides I could conjure with my bright-orange full-access armband, I was denied passage to the Super Loop.
When I had become a pre-teen and was tall enough, I climbed the stairs to the Super Loop. Thinking of past explanations as to why I was never able to ride before, I became hesitant.
“You’ll fall through the grate.”
“You’ll lose all your money on it.”
“You’re just too small.”
My blood boiled. Damn it! I was going to ride this brute. The clink of the guardrail reminded me how small and insignificant I was. I watched the carnie turn the safety key and punch the giant-mushroom green button. The car veered backwards, pulling me into an abyss. The car lunged forward, pushing me into the future. In front of me, teenagers made that whooping sound. There was something to be awed about on the Super Loop. I was nervous. I feared the warnings of falling through and losing my life and my money. However, I had safely tucked my carnival nest egg away in the bottom of my sneakers. Once that sensation of falling kicked it, I began to wonder.
“They let me ride the Sea Dragon all these years, why not this?”
I soon realized why not. The car swooshed upside down and I let out my first girlish scream. Sure, the people around me were screaming already, but this, this was like an “Oh My God, I broke a nail while cheerleading, my life is ruined and I am going to die” girly scream. All those years of hanging upside down in the Japanese plum tree never prepared me for this. My calm, deep voice that I have always admired had relinquished itself to a sound similar to saying all the vowels at once. My heart raced in my head with each upside down flip. The car was slowing down. It went back to the mere feeling that I was falling. As soon as it had come, it had gone. I stepped from the car and looked around. Everything was brighter, louder and smellier.
Like college football rivals, the Super Loop and I had it out on a yearly basis. I even mastered a one handed cartwheel because of the Super Loop. But I have to finish this fair off with one last treat from my childhood. The best ride ever invented. The Cyclone on Coney Island cannot compare. The Scream Machine of Six Flags will not understand. The Rebel Yell of King’s Dominion shall not relate. With the blaring sounds of “My Sharona”, no ride is as worthy as The Himalaya.
It is a glorious, spinning record ride with an unlimited supply of “My Sharona”. Forward, backwards, it can go in and out of wormholes in space, as long as “My Sharona” was playing, the Himalaya was the orgasm of State Fairs. Yet, nowhere do I hear the beat of “My Sharona”. It is some rap song. Music like that does not belong on the Himalaya. Don’t get me wrong. I love rap and all sorts of music, but every song has its place and “Candy Shop” is not the song for The Himalaya.
For old time sakes, I will ask the guy to play “My Sharona”. What seems like forever for my turn on the ride, I lean over and tap the deejay on the back. I am flabbergasted when this kid, younger than me, turns and asks, “What?”
I stare at him for a second. Where are the old carnies? The ones that look like they had served hard time, ended up on an episode of X-files or even held on to that look to be a featured guest on CSI, are gone. I have a BackStreet Boy as a deejay for The Himalaya.
I politely ask him, at 100 decibels, “Can you play ‘My Sharona’?”
His forehead wrinkles up in question. He pushes the black “Go” button for the ride to start. I stand diligently in line. He looks at his collection of mp3’s. He turns back to me, “Does Kanye West do that?”
Kanye West? “My Sharona”? I yell back, “No, the Knack!” He looks again. He’s baffled. I’m disgusted.
He looks at me and says, “Never heard of it.”
The harvest has come for my state fair soul. After sulking through the Snake Lady booth and seeing the 7-foot tall bull, I require comfort. I have already had one, but I needed another. If I cannot have “My Sharona”, I crave the seductive, stick to the roof of your mouth sweetness of cotton candy. For this is my good-bye to the State Fair — until next year.