The
people's choice in Livingston County... and beyond!
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The
people's choice in Livingston County... and beyond!
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Please note: More complete information about this and related subjects
can be found in our new Western New York Travel
Guide. You may wish to change your bookmarks to:
I'm always thrilled to get through that gate in the snow fence into the world
of the county fair. Stepping around kids, over manure, and past melting ice
cream, I visit every stall in every barn.
Having no sense of smell may fuel my enthusiasm, but I savor every sheep, goat,
rabbit, horse and swine. If I can manage it without too many odd looks, I visit
the petting zoo. Too bad my kids are so old now!
A small fair, like my favorite in Ontario County, is real people baking and
making, growing and showing, living real lives in real communities. I look over
all their work, whether I know them or not, and applaud enthusiastically when
their kids get awards.
I'm also one of those oddballs who seriously studies booths set up by conservation
districts, sheriffs' departments, fire companies, cooperative extension, alcoholism
counselors, youth organizations, churches-my neighbors, giving sacrificially
to help me build a better life.
This fair is a shopper's paradise. I don't want a feed trough or a salt lick,
but I drool over the sap evaporators. A fair has food, expensive, and mostly
not good for me, but I can't do the fair without a hot dog, a Coke, and a squirt
of yellow mustard.
Strolling in detached amusement through the midway (all my money goes to hot
dogs), I tremble with anticipation before the Tiltp;ap;Whirl and the
Scrambler. You may find them ridiculously tame, but I can't pass them up. Besides,
if I took anything wilder, I couldn't enjoy my hot dogs.
After dark, my legs drag as though they were slogging through water. My head
turns slowly, slowly, as I sidle through the crowd, almost asleep while I gather
up the family and ooze toward the car.
My pockets are full of circulars, household hints, and giveaway pencils, pens,
pads, rulers, bookmarks. My heart is full of the gaudiness and the grandeur
of a community coming together to show itself off and to build people up. And
my stomach is full of hot dogs. With a squirt of yellow mustard.
Dates and locations for county fairs are available at our online Western
New York Travel Guide.
Kirk House lives in Bath and is curator of the Glenn Curtiss Museum.
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