Growing up we had a county fair that rolled into town every year in the teenth week of July. It was the illustrious Ossipee Valley Fair. A day bracelet was six dollars and with it you could ride any and every ride at the fair. I nearly threw up more times than I care to remember...and I remember throwing up once. We would work for weeks to earn the money. I could walk to the fair grounds from my house, it was a couple of miles, but totally do able. We would go and ride the rides all. day. long. My Mother was a member of the Keswick Club (a group of women who did good in the community) and she worked their ice cream booth a few times during the week. It was always hot. I never had extra money for games, food or trinkets. It was rides and barfing, exclusively. What can I say, it was a treat?
Since living in California I have only taken my kids to the fair one other time. You can read about that adventure
here. I was had a stronger knack for descriptive writing back then...
This week some friends told me there was dollar day at the fair. Admission price was a buck and rides were a buck! That sounded like a great deal so we all went. It was another scorching hot day...just what you want when wandering around fair grounds.
We checked out animals (something I never spent a second on as a kid going to the Ossipee Valley Fair) and farm equipment.
We found silly props to take pictures with.
Lorien, Andrew and Clare all went off with the older kids to ride more hard core rides. No one threw up and no one was thrown to their death when a bolt came unscrewed.
We spent a good part of the day at the fair, about 5 hours. We were hot and sweaty and tired. We collected all of our Anderson people and headed to the car. The kids piled in and I looked up the nearest McDonalds on my phone. Once I had a big gulp of Coke and a fist full of french fries in my belly, I sighed a deep, exhausted and satisfied sigh. Lorien, who was sitting next to me, wanted to know why doing outings with all the kids was so exhausting for me.
I tried my best to explain.
Being a mother is pretty much constant stress and worry when we are out of the house. I worry about injury and abduction above all. It is stressful to listen to the wants/demands/interests of all these people. Bathrooms...don't even get me started on finding and using public toilets. The list of items that pull my attention all over the place is long. Most of the worrying things are irrational and I know that, but even irrational fears you can explain away take up mental space and energy. And when we are finished with an activity, and everyone is safely buckled into their seats in the car, I can finally breathe a HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF!
Lorien was not completely satisfied with my answer. She couldn't see or fully understand all I was mentally freaking out about...so I shared a couple of stories about my childhood fair experiences to help her understand my anxiety in this particular situation.
Scary Story #1
When I was 11 or 12 I went to the Ossipee Valley Fair. I cannot remember if I went alone, with siblings or friends. I think most likely I went with siblings. I went straight for my favorite ride, I cannot remember what it was called. I was riding alone so I think my siblings must have picked a different first ride. There were not a lot of other people on the ride and I got a seat alone. The ride was made up of three long octopus arms with three spinning seats on the end of each arm. You basically went whipping around like you were on an elastic band bouncing back and forth in a contained circle. If you've ever been on the Tow Mater ride at Disney California Adventure, it was just like that...but held together with rust, spit and curse words.
As I made the first pass by the ride operator's booth I saw the ride guy step out from behind his barrier and stand in the ride part of ride. As I whipped past I thought: "That doesn't seem safe." but I whipped by too fast to figure out why he was there. On the next pass, a few seconds later, he was still standing outside the booth. On the third pass, (and now the sensitive and young should stop reading) he had unzipped his pants and was exposing himself to all of the riders who passed...myself included. I remember thinking it was weird and gross. Why would he do that? But having zero understanding of more serious issues around this kind of behavior I hopped off the ride and spent the rest of the day at the fair, unmolested. When I was a bit older, thinking back on the situation I realized how creepy and scary it was. Moreover, I realized what kind of awfulness could have happened to me alone, elsewhere at the fair. Bad news.
Scary Story #2
When I was a teenager, I went to the Fryburg Fair with a friend. The Fryburg Fair was further away from home (almost in New Hampshire) and you had to pay to get in and pay for every ride. It was too expensive for me so I didn't go as a kid. However, in high school, I played in the marching band (calm down, we were not that good). The band played at the fair one day in the week it was running. We got free admission for being participants. So I went around with my friend looking at everything and buying nothing. Somehow we came up with some money to go on ONE ride. It was similar to my old favorite ride...except it was up in the air.
We climbed into a metal box and had a cross bar loosely attached over our laps. The ride lifted into the air and we started spinning. On the second or third rotation, our lap bar came undone...this is not a drill. I was closest to the opening and my friend, Eileen, was on the inside. She was a few years older than I and so a bit bigger. The centripetal force pushed her against me...and pushed me against the now open lap bar. I was screaming "Eileen, the bar is open!" and "Stop the ride!" over and over again. Eileen didn't think I was serious and the ride operator could not identify my screams for help from the whoops of fun. As we whipped around I wrapped my hands around the bar and tried to keep it down while centripetal force tried to push us out. I remember feeling the bar fly open with each whip. I remember thinking "I cannot hold this down for one more whip. We are gonna die." and then the ride stopped.
I burst into tears and choked breaths. I showed Eileen the open bar as the slowing ride lowered to the ground. I think her face went white. We were seconds away from being a six o'clock tragedy story across two states.
So...fairs are pretty fun...and scary...for many reasons. AND I totally deserved that large Coke and fries for keeping my kids alive and unmolested.
Winning.
