Well, it is “Fair Time”, and any number of things go on there, except…. I always try to get to at least one fair as Summer winds down–Portage, Geauga, Lorain, State, whatever. Each fair has something about it, a story of how it got to be what it is, when it is, all that. Portage, for instance, has the “Portage County Randolph Fair” and to our west we have the “Lorain County Wellington Fair”. {My favorite, because I grew up in it.} This is at least partly because each of these locations–Randolph, Wellington–had their own , independent fairs, separate from the county fairs, held in the county seats–Ravenna, Elyria–and folks could go to either, or both the independent or the county whoop-ti-doo. That lasted until the state agricultural society announced that it would only support county fairs, AND the value of the real estate tied up in fairgrounds in the given county seats exceeded the revenue produced by its use for, actually, only a few days a year. So, the two entities–county and independent– were combined, to ensure the financial backing and to make winners ( in 4-H and such) eligible to move on to state competition, should they choose to do that (Of course, they can often move on anyway, if they just pay the entrance fee.). Other independent fairs mostly slowly died out unless they had some very strong backing from somewhere and/or a fabled history which lived on in one form or another. And, of course, there are still plenty of local celebrations of one sort or another, highlighting a local product, history, event or personality. Which brings me to item # 1.
The Ohio Bratwurst Festival Queen (Bucyrus, county seat of Crawford County, west of us){Wasn’t she here for the SummerFest Grand Parade?} was removed from her throne recently, allowing the runner-up to do the honors, crowning the new Bratwurst Queen at this year’s festival. Everyone involved has, so far, been totally close-mouthed about the cause of the de-thronement, but no aspersions have been cast and the now-commoner, former queen says that she enjoyed the time which she spent touring the state. The new, short-term royalty will be queenly during this year’s event and everybody will probably write a book about it later. Lawyers have now entered the picture. Stay tuned.
Not all exciting rides are at the fair, however.
Cedar Point, for example has both roller coasters & thrill rides, and ferris wheels. The original Ferris Wheel appeared at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (The event was supposed to celebrate the arrival of Columbus in North America in 1492, but it ran a little late.). The planners wished to answer the challenge of the recently-constructed Eiffel Tower in Paris and display some sort of architectural marvel. G.W.G. Ferris, jr. designed and built the original Ferris Wheel–36 cars, 60 passengers each, 50 cents a ride–and it was an amazing hit (That and “Little Egypt”, a belly dancer who introduced America to the “hoochie-coochie”. Legend has it that Mark Twain nearly had a heart attack when he saw her show.). Anyway…
Where was I ? Oh, yeah, the Ferris Wheel.
Recently a couple was arrested at Cedar Point, charged with “public indecency” for far-exceeding the belly dance and involving several other body parts not generally in focus as the gondolas rise to the top of the wheel. Indeed, their focus was on “rockin’ the boat”, so-to-speak, not admiring the view. Other passengers–juveniles included–complained to the operators and the Sandusky police took the pair away. Their original story was that the female had dropped her pack of cigarettes and the male was helping her find it. They apparently had to take off some of their garments to do this; women’s garments never have enough pockets anyway. Chalk that up to a first-degree misdemeanor. Not a Blue-Ribbon winner.
Gosh, I don’t remember anything even remotely like that in my fair-going/competing period Back in the day, at the Lorain County Wellington Fair, we 4-H kids weren’t even allowed to stay overnight on the fairgrounds or in the barns (Some of the “big boys” did, it was rumored but they had to sneak around to do it.)the whole camper thing had yet to take root. And there certainly were no “facilities” in the whole place that anyone would choose to make use of after dark.
Now-a-days folks can have nearly all of the comforts of home to stay for the whole week. Just stay away from the ferris wheels.
