Fair Play

Maple Valley Days -- our local fair: it happens once a year, the second weekend in June. The fair has food -- the type to give you a heart attack, both through the fat content and the cost; it has local companies touting their wares as well as Scout troops recruiting young boys... and it has rides. It is the rides (and the balloon animals) for which my sons come.

Their father brought them first. Saturday night while I went off to see 'Snow White and the Huntsman' with a friend, her teen-aged daughter and two of her daughter's friends, he and the boys walked a mile from our house. They rode on a ride on a ride that was destined to become the favorite, nicknamed by my youngest the 'Tilt-a-Hurl', on the 'Berry-go-round' (something similar to the Teacups at Disneyland) and then, while my eldest watched (he does not like heights), my husband and youngest son went on the 'Ferret Weasel'... have you guessed the rides yet? Ummm... yes. The 'Tilt-a-Whirl' and the 'Ferris Wheel'. Sad thing is, I now have to actually THINK to remember their 'real' names...

Anyway, on Sunday, my husband was committed to a 6 hour practice for his Black Belt Ascension Test which will be happening June 17th. My sons, eyes sad with missing daddy, begged me to PLEASE take them back to the fair so that they could drown their sorrows in another round of Tilt-a-Hurl... Oh, I should've known better.

Planning ahead, I offered them something light: Part of an apple and a granola bar each. I didn't want to find myself paying for over priced and artery clogging fair food. I also didn't want them getting sick from eating a heavy lunch right before riding the Tilt-a-hurl as I knew they would want to do. Carefully, I placed the apples and sliced granola bars in small bags for the boys then chased them around the house getting all the last minute busyness handled. It was only when we were cresting our small hill that my eldest suddenly noticed 'Mom, I left my snack at home!' His little brother blithely held out his bag, 'That's alright, bahbah. You can have half of mine.' Decision settled, we kept walking.

The roads to the fair were crowded with cars parked, as one would expect, on the pedestrian paths. People wormed their ways around the cars, trying to avoid being hit by cars squeezing past, in search of some other parking space closer to the actual fair grounds. Parking attendants, if that is what they were supposed to be, chatted amiably with drivers and each other, slowing traffic even more but the heat of the sun seemed to have a dulling effect on the need for speed and everyone moved at a snails pace. Women with strollers bumped painfully along the graveled and pitted path (And it is always women pushing strollers. Men wear babies in backpacks or carry kids on their shoulders. I always wondered how much real value strollers have. To me, they always seemed not worth the extra effort.) while inside, the youngster complained mightily. My own children were having a heated debate (which seemed appropriate given the weather) as to the right place to enter the fair grounds -- two different streams of people were entering/exiting from two different locations. One was going through a large entrance, the one that Jason thought looked to be the 'official' entrance. The other location was smaller and farther in through the parking lot. It was through that one we went and that one, it turned out, was actually the road along which the free shuttle traveled. Xander's interest in it, however, stemmed from the presence of two bright yellow vested security folks. He led us willy nilly over to them and, planting himself in front of them, said 'Hi!' The guards looked startled then smiled. 'Hi, yourself!' Satisfied that forms had been observed, Xander smiled up at them and said 'We are off to ride the Tilt-a-Hurl. Have a nice day! Bye!' He left the two, rather bemused looking guards and marched off purposefully toward the bright, spinning lights of the fair.

The first stop was, of course, the ticket booth. I reeled when I saw the cost of tickets -- 1$ a ticket and the rides were 4 tickets per ride. Wow. Prices have gone up since I was a kid. But, gulping, I bravely laid my money down and was rewarded by the glow in my sons' faces. 'To the Tilt-a-Hurl!' they yelled and off we went. Now, as a child, this had always been my favorite ride so, of course, I had to go with them... oh.. dear... now I understood the nickname. When the ride finally ended, my sons begged to go again. I nodded groggily and wobbling to the carnie, paid for them then wobbled off to stand and watch while they whirled away, shrieking and laughing. They rode one more time before Xander announced that it was time to go in search of an Elephant ear, that sugary confection of which he is so terribly enamored. (I plan to try making some at home this summer: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Elephant-Ears-2/Detail.aspx ) We found the booth that sells them... for a whopping 5$ per ear... and bought one ear to split and bottles of water. Taking our booty, we found a shaded spot near the Kickball field and there we watched the game and ate the ear.... or, in Xander's case, wallowed in it. When the ear was gone, Xander was silvered with sugar... and I was... horrified. My child, who had actually started the day in CLEAN clothes, now looked indescribable. He soothed me, telling me that the surest cure for sugared boy was 'another spin the the Tilt-a-Hurl'. That, he assured me 'will dispense with any excess sugar.' Sigh. I informed him that, yes, we did have sufficient tickets left for another spin but first we had to walk around a bit -- long enough for the EE to sink a bit closer to his feet. He argued a bit but his elder brother's willingness to walk won the day and so we walked. We looked at various goods, briefly considered getting henna tatoos -- though the prices were outrageous -- and admired the winning robot that had been built by the local robotics league of which our neighbor was a member. Xander gazed longingly at the balloon animals and the face painting booths but both had lines and as I was beginning to tire (having run earlier that morning) I allowed as how we could either stand in line for who knows how long or we could go back to the rides. The rides won the day. Once more to the Tilt-a-Hurl and then, with only a few tickets less, the boys decided to ride the Berries. This required that they purchase two more tickets but they were quite happy to do so. They whirled round and round and watching I realized that, not to be gender biased or anything, you can tell which berries had little boys in them and which ones had Moms. The ones being 'driven' by boys spun round and round; the ones with moms didn't. I watched and the moms were always pulling in the OPPOSITE direction from the way their kids were pulling... snicker.

It was a long day but the smiles on my sons' faces made the walk worth it -- and the weather obviously agreed as it stayed sunny the whole day through.