At the fair

Thank your lucky stars, gentle readers. You lucked out. This week I had to chose between writing about something that really hacked me off, or something that was mildly amusing if somewhat disturbing on a personal level. I opted for the mildly amusing. Frankly, my blood pressure couldn’t handle a diatribe against irresponsibility at this juncture.
Weekend before last, my better half and I made the trek over to Memphis to attend the Mid-South Fair. For those of you who have never attended that event and think the Arkansas State Fair in Little Rock is a big show, the Mid-South Fair is about 5 times the size of our state fair and far more diverse in terms of attractions. I mean, I don’t think Dr. Zarr’s Amazing Funk Monster would be much of a crowd pleaser here in the Natural State, but it was a headline attraction in Memphis (that should give you some indication of why I moved away).
In spite of its on-going tendency to be weird, I still have a warm place in my heart for the big fair in my home town. As a youth, I escorted many young ladies to the fair on dates and usually found the combination of a pretty girl and a diversity of attractions to be a pleasant occasion.
Of course in the halcyon days of my youth, freak shows were still a big part of the mid-way at any large fair. Bearded and tattooed ladies, “ossified” men and sword swallowers were rather passe’ by that time. What went over big were the people and critters of one kind or another with an extra appendage of some sort. Two-headed ponies and snakes were big in those days as were goats with five legs and, now and then, a set of Siamese twins.
In my entire life (and I didn’t miss a Mid-South Fair for over 45 years) I only went into one of those freak shows, and that was at the insistence of a young woman who I never dated again. She just had to see the baby with three arms.
Some of you, gentle readers are old enough to remember thalydamide and the horrors that drug wrought on pregnant women and their off-spring. If you’re not old enough to remember it, ask one of your elders about it. It’s not a pleasant story.
My most recent trip to the fair was far more enjoyable, if a bit tiring for an old guy with poor circulation. Just can’t seem to keep going all day anymore. Not that I really want to be young again. Too much trouble.
Anyway, while seeing the exhibits and eating the exotic food, the wife and I stumbled upon the building in which they were holding the Mid-South Youth Talent Contest, which has been a part of the fair for almost a century. We just had to stop in and watch a few of the acts, for old time’s sake. You see, we had both participated in that contest after winning local talent shows, she in Hazen in 1972 and your humble correspondent at Overton High School in Memphis in 1968.
Now, I will be the first to admit that the memory is sometimes convenient and we remember things being much better (or worse as the case may be) than they really were. But I seem to recall that back in our day, the contestants actually had to be talented, at least to some degree. If the acts we saw were any indication of the future of live entertainment, we’re in sad shape, neighbors. Either that or we blundered into the “I can sing more off-key than you can” portion of the competition.
All the girls wanted to be the next Brittney Spears (a nauseating thought in and of itself), dressed, or more accurately, half-dressed like Time Square hookers, and the guys all wanted to be Garth Brooks, clumping around in cowboy hats and boots and Western shirts when it was perfectly obvious they had never been within spitting distance of a live horse. What ever happened to being yourself? Showing a little originality, creativity.
One unfortunate young woman gave what was at the very least a diverse presentation. Her act included singing, clog dancing, ventriloquism and yodeling. Not the sort of thing you see every day, or that you’d want to. She also seemed to be having a fundamental disagreement with the recorded accompaniment about the key in which the song should be sung.
Then again, for all I know, that might have been part of the act.