It's Fair Time Again

"Fair time" differs from state to state and from region to region--and even within a state, depending on whether you're focused on a single county fair, the state fair, or a whole series of fairs in your area.

I consider "fair time" just after the 4th of July. That's when I start checking the various calendars to see when our local fairs begin, which run from mid-July to mid-August. As much as I love fairs, I don't get to as many as I used to. My mother and I have this commitment to go to the Hamilton County Fair simply because neither of us has ever missed one (my mother turns 80 in September). In my first post on this blog, "Why a Blog About a Forgotten Fair?", I explain some of my history with that fair and my feelings about its struggles over the last decade.

We usually make it to at least one other fair in the area. Usually it's the Warren County Fair in Lebanon, Ohio. However, thanks to two stormy days in the middle of a drought, we may not make it after all. (It's already sodden outside, and they're predicting severe weather this evening.) However, if it's not unbearably warm next week, we may try to make it to the Butler County Fair in Hamilton, Ohio, another great, active fair.

I personally like Clermont County Fair as well, but it runs at the same time as the Butler County Fair and there's not quite as much to see, although I enjoyed entering needlework a few times a decade ago when I lived in the northern Clermont County section of Loveland. During my most fanatical period of attending fairs, I usually made it to all four local Ohio fairs, plus the Ohio State Fair, the Indiana State Fair, and the Montgomery County Fair in Dayton. As circumstances changed, and as my mother found it all more and more challenging to her stamina, we scaled back.

I guess there will come a day when I won't head out to at least one fair during the summer; but as long as I'm able to get around on my own (hopefully for decades yet), I'll attend a fair, even when I have to go alone. (I used to go to fairs alone a lot in the '80s). I'll gaze at the entries with their ribbons, smell the straw and dust and manure in the barns, pet all the goats and sheep, and probably sit somewhere and think about the fairs of my past, my mother's and my triumphs in competition, and my grandfather in his silver-and-blue jacket driving trotters and pacers around so many county fair racetracks that have all but disappeared in this area.

Memories like those, though, are comforting. And they remind me what a happy life I've had.

Note: The photo above is of a mini quilt hanging my mother made combining ribbons from the Montgomery County Fair and one of her own drawings painted onto fabric. You can read more about it at her blog, Lillian's Cupboard.