Going To The County Fair

[WARNING: This turned into a long one. If you like fairs, I think you'll like this post.]

Talk about an absolutely incredible weekend. Warm, no humidity, clear skies. Wow!

My friend/next-door neighbor and I made our annual Labor Day Weekend trek up to the Rensselaer County fair, more commonly called The Schaghticoke Fair (pronounced Ska-ti-coke) because of the town where it's located.


The first thing you hear when you walk in from the parking area is the popping, whirring, and chugging of old-fashioned farm equipment kept running by locals. There was a large machine that pumped water for irrigation; others running large saws. The machine seen here removed the dried kernels from a corn cob to make cattle feed. The man standing behind the machine drops a single ear into the opening at the top and the stripped cob is expelled from on opening and the kernels from another. The good old days were a lot of work!


There was a petting zoo and children could take ride on a camel. I thought I might see Osama but no luck. Who knows where that bastard is hiding? I'm pretty sure where ever he is a camel ain't too far behind. Give me props for at least being alert to his sorry ass. I mean, with a $25 million "dead or alive" bounty on his head, I probably have about as good a shot of finding him as winning the lottery I played last week. It's all about playing the percentages, people. ;)

We only went through one of the animal barns. No horses, cows, sheep, goats, or alpacas. I do enjoy watching them milk all the cows on-site at the milking demonstration but we were too early. During the questions and answers, a parent always convinces their child to ask the farmer where chocolate milk comes from...and a collective giggle sweeps across the bleechers and then a murmur as parents explain the joke to their own children.

The Poultry Barn houses a wide variety of chickens, rabbits, ducks, and guinea pigs. I'm not sure you'd call a guinea pig "poultry" —hell, in Peru you call it dinner (ba dum bum) — but this is where they're displayed. Each time my friend approached a cage with a rooster, it would crow (the rooster, not the cage). She had a knack for it. Too bad she can't turn that into a paying gig!


I always used to describe my ex as a "banty rooster." This pic is of a bantam rooster and those that know my ex will now understand why I called him that. BTW, this was something my ex knew I called him, and not in a mean way, just that he had skinny legs, a strut, and a cocky attitude. One of his favorite sayings was, "Any Cock'll Do!"


Another friend of mine always encourages her two children to participate in the Arts & Crafts and Gardening competitions. I had just finished explaining this when I spotted these rocks from about 10 feet away. "Now those," I said as I pointed, "are exactly what he would enter." Sure enough, they were his. He's only six and he won a blue ribbon!


We went through the Commercial Buildings and I only bought a superball. I joked about buying one at the same place as a boy and bouncing that sucker for hours and hours, day after day. Now kids play video games. Honestly I think I had more fun. So I bought another superball yesterday. Nostalgia for 25 cents is cheap!

The Fire Company building brings back a lot of childhood memories. My father used to be the only paid countywide employee for the fire service. Here in rural New York, only the cities of Troy and Rensselaer have paid fire departments. All the others that serve local villages and towns are volunteer and my Dad used to coordinate all their efforts, training, mutual aid plans, and the radio dispatchers.

I used to spent every day at the fair. [Probably a reasonable explanation why I love the fair and firemen.] There was a screening room in the back behind a drape where I was in charge of running the projectors that showed movies about fire prevention that featured Disney's Donald Duck and his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louis. I still remember the film that had an animated spark with an evil impish face that would jump out of a campfire and hop from place to place starting forest fires.


My father was also a carpenter by trade. He and a neighbor, who was an electrician by trade, made a huge map of the county that had little red lights where all of the fire houses were. You would push buttons on the control panel next to any town and the light showing the firehouse would come on. Of course the cities had multiple firehouses so those were the fun ones to push!

On the midway, my partner in crime wanted to play the game where you shoot water from a pistol into the mouth of a clown and compete in a race with the other players. $3 a play! Ouch. I only played twice and was convinced I was at a bum machine. We moved on to the color game. You can play this game of chance for 25 cents to get a lower prize and 50 cents for winner's choice. I had to stop and spend $2 worth of quarters on green which is a family tradition. Not lime green, not forest green, not kelly green, not green with a line through it. Just plain green. We have an attic full of stuffed toys won on green. They've increased the number of colors so the chances of the ball settling in your color hole is more sporadic — but it was fun nonetheless. Then it was on to the Quarters game where you drop a quarter into a machine with parts that moves back and forth. If your quarter lands in the right place, the machine pushes it into the quarters played before it, and if you're lucky some drop off into the slot for you to take. I'm pretty good at it. I spent about $2 but played for quite a while since I won (and put back in) about $9 over the course of playing. Whack-A-Mole was missing this year.

What would the fair be without food? I wasn't very hungry, so I only had a sausage and peppers sandwich, fries, and fresh squeezed lemonade for lunch. Later in the day, I had a chocolate milkshake and fried dough with powdered sugar and cinnamon. We also ran into my brother in line so he stopped and had a bite with us. We're old pros when it comes to the fair so we know what booths have all the best, biggest, cheapest offerings. I couldn't eat my half of the fried dough I bought with my friend...my brother scarfed down his by himself!


Besides the games that offered the chance to win a stuffed animal on the midway, there are the rides. I'm not a ride type person so I didn't go on any. I want to feel good after I get off a ride, not sick. I mean, what's the point exactly? There is always one big ride at these local carnivals. First was the Ferris Wheel. Then came the Skydiver, a ferris wheel with cars that pointed forward (up on the way up and down on the way down). Next came the Double Ferris Wheel, officially dubbed the Sky Wheel. Bright yellow and the wheel on the top kept going around as the bottom would load and offload passengers. Then the fair started to decline and the best rides went elsewhere. Here is this year's big ride:


Reserved for the corner is one of two rides: The Flying Bobs or The Super Himalaya (this year). It's a speed ride, with blasting music and a carnie that encourages the riders to scream "faster" over his microphone. I can remember when these rides used to be REALLY fast. Then there was a few accidents where people went flying out, or a bobsled became detached and went careening into the crowd, and the rides got slower and boring as far as I'm concerned.


Walking back to the car, I snapped this pic of a Demolition Derby casualty. We caught a bit of the derby during our walkabout. I'm sure there is a whole school of thought about why these events are so popular (or maybe not), but we stopped for about 10 minutes to watch the cars crash into each other. The Grandstand was packed with thousands of people watching and cheering over the spectacle.


I love Labor Day Weekend and I love the Schaghticoke Fair.
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