Deb came down with passes to the fair --including parking, so she didn't have to ride in on my handlebars for free parking --and I followed her along on her traditional route, which started with an elephant ear that both put us under gastrically for some time.I, in true allegiance to my family name, chose to show my stomach who was boss and got a corndog. Then another. The second corndog was an error. I knew this as soon as I gave my order. The folks in the booth were a mess. A real mess, and the words of my corndog order were coming out like some sort of unstoppable liquid and once I let her know I wanted a corndog I watched her extend her thumb to her mouth, lick it, use the moistened thumb to loosen the sheet of paper from the stack, and use the spitty paper to wrap my corndog. Word to the wise--as soon as you see some 60-year-old with a snakebite and an eyebrow ring taking your order, run mid-sentence.
From there we witnessed the pre-demise of the poultry barn, with the non-prize-winners stuffed into crates (chickens with ducks, ducks with geese, chickens and ducks with geese) and taken away by the truckload, then the Reubenesque curves of the draft horses pulling laquered carts with running lights.This late in the week the Fair seemed a sort of society that knows its end is near--the loopiness of the attendees, the wave of agitation that overtook the Poultry pavilion once the men came to empty the cages, the shuttering of various booths. The Gideons were handing out pamphlets--other religious groups had stands with knobbed doors with various questions on them saying things like Are you going to go to heaven? What will God do to me if I don't believe? Do pets have an afterlife? Regarding the last question, there are about 100 crates of poultry right now that are hoping the answer is Yes.
1 comment:
somewhere down the line I commented on Jimmy....
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