The Fairest of Them All

When you grow up in a town that includes the state fairgrounds, you might, after so many years, begin to take the Fair for granted. You might develop a kind of ho-hum attitude toward it, and--worst case scenario--you might become so apathetic toward it that you don't bother to go at all during the Fair's traditional eleven-day August run.

That is, however, not the case with me. Even though I now live thirty-four miles south of my hometown, sometimes referred to as "The State Fair City," I can't recall a year when I didn't go to the Fair at least once. When I was a little kid, it ranked right up there with my birthday and Christmas as a highlight of the calendar year. For me, the Fair (which I honor even now with a capital letter) was big stuff.

The Fair is even bigger stuff now that I have six grandchildren to share it with. Ranking from five to twelve years old, they are all the perfect ages to enjoy the variety of entertainment and activity the Fair offers. Largely to humor their Googie, both families of children make it a priority to spend at least one day together scoping out freebies, indulging themselves with Fair food, checking out the goings-on, and getting their wristbands' worth of rides on the midway.

Although this year's event enabled us to once again enjoy some of our favorite Fair features, we got the chance to try out some new experiences as well. The photos that follow focus on some of the things we took on this year that we don't usually do.

If you have followed "Googie's Attic" through the Fairs of previous years, you know about our yellow T-shirts, which all of us except Heero (far right) and Beenie (far left--he is wearing a lookalike) still fit into. Wearing bright yellow, we do not do much at the Fair that goes unnoticed. We look a little like a flock of ducks, but--hey--two years ago, when the kids were four through ten, these shirts definitely helped us to keep the flock together. This may be our final yellow-shirt year, but you will be glad to know these trusty garments will be retired with honor, having served their purpose nobly.

This was the kids' first year to see the massive, majestic Budweiser Clydesdales up close and personal. Placards listing the horses' birth dates gave the kids a chance to brush up on their summer vacation math skills. Most of them found a horse with either a birthday near their own or one who was close in age.

 
It was also our first year to catch a hug from Sparky the Fire Dog, as Beenie, Heero, and Bootsie do here. A quick check on the website sparky.org reminds me that Sparky first began his fire prevention campaign in 1951, the year before I was born. Since then, he has appeared as an advocate of fire safety in coloring books, comic books, and videos.

Sixty-eight years may be an impressive career for a fire dog, but this year marks the seventy-fifth birthday of Sparky's cohort, Smokey the Bear. Here, Zoomie and Heero celebrate with Smokey, a Fair icon who still moves his arm up and down, points his finger at you, and delivers a recorded fire safety message with the push of a button, as Heero demonstrates.

This last photo shows Zoomie and Pooh visiting with my friend Kathleen, who is living a dream by impersonating Laura Ingalls Wilder, the much-loved author of the Little House on the Prairie series of children's books. Following her presentation, "Laura" encouraged participation from the audience and took time to answer impromptu questions. Sooby, Pooh, Bootsie, and Zoomie are familiar with Wilder's books as bedtime story material, so each of them--as well as their cousin Beenie--readily offered a question that Kathleen, in turn, fielded expertly.

What happened to Nellie Oleson (this "mean" girl was actually a composite of two real-life meanies)? To the Boasts (the Ingalls' neighbors)? To Pa (played by Michael Landon in the TV series)? To Mary (Laura's sister who went blind)? How many times in all did you move?

I was proud of the kids for their interest, attention, and willingness to speak out with their questions. If theirs are questions you wonder about as well, you may want to invite "Laura" to tailor a presentation for your group. (You can e-mail Kathleen Boswell at boswell@iland.net if you wish more info.)

The Clydesdales, Sparky, Smokey's birthday, and Laura Ingalls Wilder (plus the fact that everyone can now drive the bumper cars unassisted--this is BIG!) were just some of this year's Fair highlights. I can't express how much it means to me for these kids to share this much-loved institution of my own childhood.

When next August rolls around, it will be hard to top the novel experiences of this year's Fair--but there is this to consider: We plan to be pushing a stroller. It will be Baby Packee's first Fair, and that alone will make it special.

The Recipe

Take six kids ages four to eleven. Stir in a couple warm August days. Add the annual state fair to the mix, and you have a recipe that serves up a big batch of fun for all of us. This year was no exception.

Our Missouri State Fair has so much to offer that it takes us two days to do it justice, and even then there are things we miss. But, as always, we once again gave it our best effort and, from what I can tell, we were left with the usual aftertaste of pleasant memories. Here are some of this year's key ingredients.

The fairgrounds never lack for free entertainment. Although we have yet to enjoy the annual circus, we finally made it to the pig races this time. Heero would be the first to tell you that "our" pig won the big race, meaning he got to the Oreo first in the third and final lap. Here, Heero, Zoomie, Beenie, and Sooby wait for the races to start.

 
Other entertainers stroll the grounds, like this pair of human Transformers. You can tell by the kids' Highway Patrol hats that we had just come from numerous conversations with Otto the Talking Patrol Car.

The Petting Zoo, where the kids can pet and feed exotic animals, is always a favorite, but I couldn't pull my camera out there because my hands were covered with llama slime. The Children's Barnyard is a little less interactive but no less fun, as Bootsie demonstrates with her cousins. No, this cow is not one of the many real ones you can see at the Fair.

In addition to agriculture, Fair exhibits also promote an awareness of conservation. Here, none other than Smokey the Bear himself warns Pooh, Bootsie, and their cousins about the dangers of forest fires.

Just outside the Conservation Department buildings, the kids gather for a group shot around another friendly bear.

Our second day at the Fair takes us to the midway, where the kids do all they can to get Googie's money's worth out of six unlimited-rides wristbands. I can safely say I have never left the Fair feeling cheated. Our matching yellow shirts, which have made it successfully into their third year, make us a force to be reckoned with. They also make it easier for us to find each other in the mayhem.

This year, one of my friends told me she had seen a video clip of our gang on MSNBC as the "Fair Family of the Day." Since I missed it, I am left to wonder what I was doing and how I looked during those few seconds. But one thing I am sure of is that we were having a great time.

Now, a couple weeks post-Fair, I relegate this recipe for fun to the box until we pull it out again this time next year. The kids (and I) will all be another year older then, but I won't worry too much just yet.

I know that one of these days I will wake up and the t-shirts will no longer fit. Instead of the Fair, there will be a whole slew of graduations and weddings, and carnival money will go for more tangible presents. That day will come all too soon.

That's why, for the time being, I don't mind investing in wristbands and enduring the occasional kiss of a llama.

Smokey Makes History

As a Baby Boomer, I grew up in a generation of kids who loved their bears. Of course, by the time I arrived on the scene, "The Three Bears" had long been prominent in the kiddie lit world, and the market had been saturated with teddy bears. (Mine was named "Sandy.")

But with the arrival of our family's first black and white TV in 1958 came "Dancing Bear" on Captain Kangaroo and the  "pick-a-nick"-basket-stealing Yogi ("smarter than the a-a-a-average bear") who, along with his sidekick Boo-Boo, modeled for us many clever ways to outsmart forest rangers. It was at about this same time that I first became aware of Smokey, who convinced me that I and I alone had the power to prevent forest fires.

Every year since I can remember, I have seen Smokey at our Missouri State Fair, held every August in my hometown. He is a staple in the Department of Conservation building there.

This version of Smokey is a large mechanical creature, decked out, as the song says, "[w]ith a Ranger's hat and shovel/and a pair of dungarees."  Against a backdrop of forest timber, he stands ready to deliver a little mini-lecture on fire safety in his gruff bear voice anytime a little forefinger dares to reach out and push his button. After a number of such button-pushings, Sooby poses with Smokey at last month's Fair:

As it turns out, Smokey celebrated his milestone 70th birthday on Aug. 9, the third day of our Fair. Hoai-Tran Bui in USA Today (7 Aug. 1014) identifies Smokey as "the face of the longest-running public service campaign in the U.S." Conceived primarily for children, Bui reports, Smokey came about due to the danger forest fires could pose in the western U.S. due to enemy fire during World War II.

The lovable bear's popularity got a further boost a decade later when a cub saved from a New Mexico fire was dubbed "Smokey" and given a home in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. "Smokey even had his own zip code to accommodate all his fan letters," Bui writes.

Smokey's image has kept pace with the times and with modern technological trends. Not only does he have his own website, but he also has a place in today's social media. According to an Aug. 11 post on the CBS News website, Smokey has "joined Facebook and . . . has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter."

The grandkids and I had a good time talking about Smokey's birthday. The occasion added a little something extra to our visit to the Conservation Building this year, although little Zoomie still prefers to keep a safe distance between himself and any bear,

When I told the kids that Smokey is just about the same age as Pa-pa, that really made them think. But then, when one of them asked me if Smokey had any grandkids, I had to do a little quick thinking of my own.

"I'm pretty sure he does," I said. "They probably had a big birthday party for him in the forest before he came out here to the Fair."

Happy Birthday, Smokey. Thanks to you, CBS figures the number of forested acres destroyed by fire is less than a third of what it was when you were born in 1944. Keep up the good work, my furry friend, and we'll see you at the Fair again next summer.