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.

Why a Blog About a Forgotten Fair?

My mother's beloved postcard of early Carthage Fairgrounds,
long before either one of us had been there.

It's because the Greater Cincinnati Carthage Fair is nearly forgotten that I wanted to post memories about it. The sad truth is, its current incarnation, the Hamilton County Fair, isn't in great shape. Just this morning I read a local news article that 4-H has broken away from the traditional fair on the old Carthage fairground for a new venue in western Hamilton County, Stricker's Grove. Someday I might attend. Right now I'm too bitter.

Even though I haven't been a resident of Hamilton County, Ohio, for almost a decade, I've tried to support the Hamilton County Fair by at least attending. Last year even that was a challenge. My mother (who hasn't missed a fair in Carthage in her nearly 79 years) and I went over to the fair midday last August. Things looked disturbingly quiet and shut up. Even the doors to the exhibit halls, where we had each won so many ribbons during our heyday, were closed to us. I ducked into the manager's office and asked. Somehow I'd missed the news that the fair would open only in the evenings. I was stunned.

I told Mom. We sat disconsolately in the empty entertainment tent for a few minutes, then wandered back between the buildings. We looked at the garden exhibits by local growing clubs, tried to peer through the paint-smeared windows of the arts building, dragged down the hill and through the mute midway, then climbed in the car and went home. We both counted it as our annual visit. It was too hard to fight traffic to return to the fairgrounds that evening, and we were in the middle of a blistering heat wave. Neither one of us felt up to the strain.

I told my mother I regard missing Hamilton County Fair as bringing the kind of curse they talk about regarding ravens and the Tower of London: Legend has it if ravens aren't kept at the Tower, the Tower itself will fall and England will suffer a terrible misfortune. My superstition is that if Mom misses a fair, something will happen to her and I'll lose my last link to both her heritage of harness racing and Carthage Fair as our family shared it. (Naturally, I'm more concerned about losing her, period, but she understands.)

Sadly, the fair I fell in love with as a child is long gone. The current fair is on life support. What else is left but to turn my vision back in time to Carthage Fair as I experienced it with my family, so many of whom are now gone.

NOTE: If you also have memories of Carthage Fair you'd like to share, add them to the comments. Or contact me about a guest post. I'd love to hear others' tales of enjoying Carthage Fair.