Fall Fare
Posted on September 3, 2013 under Storytelling with no comments yet
You can feel it in the air. There is coolness in the early morning and late evening breeze that is a harbinger of fall. Some leaves have already fallen off of the trees although this can be attributed to some disease affecting the maples in our neighborhood. The days are getting shorter and you can almost feel the angst as teachers gird themselves for another year of reining in children for whom September has come too soon. Summer is drawing to a close, which also means it’s time for the Fall Fair.
It seems like nothing stays the same any more. The world is moving at warp speed. Everything happens quickly and it seems that even what you had for breakfast can be transmitted to your breathless friends on Facebook. Might I suggest you just chill out for a moment and hop on the Merry Go ‘Round.
The local Fall Fair, otherwise known as The Eastern Nova Scotia Exhibition, has been going on for an eternity. Some records place the beginning sometime in the late 1800’s and early on, the Exhibition grounds were located at what is now Columbus Field.
Earlier this year there were some doubts as to whether the community would have the Exhibition at all. My favorite event at the Fair is the tug of war…. no, not the one waged recently between the Town and County at considerable expense over unpaid taxes. Talk about a Merry Go Round. We should have just asked the carnies to sort that one out.
All of these Exhibitions have their roots in the agricultural community so it is no surprise that one of the most important days of the Exhibition is 4H day. I never truly appreciated this until some of our children took part in 4H. The chickens and rabbits got better care by exhibitors and judges alike than many human beings do. Including the poor parents who fed and housed the menagerie in the off season. Did I mention that some things never change?
With all due respect to agriculture, the Midway is the centrepiece of the four day spectacle if you are a child or still young at heart. The adrenalin starts pumping the moment the Ferris Wheel appears above the tree line on Fairview Street. For those with the stomach for it, the Tilt a Whirl is a staple. My personal preference is the Caterpillar ride.
When it comes to food, it can be pretty well summed up with two words: French fries and cotton candy. The fries are generally soggy and constitute “heart attack on a plate”. And when it comes to cotton candy, it is an all-out territorial war between small children and the wasps that inevitably hover close by.
And carefully orchestrating the entire spectacle, like the Wizard of Oz, is Donald who quietly and efficiently masterminds the Exhibition. He has been doing this for a very long time, although I doubt even he remembers the Ex at Columbus Field.
Don’t expect the find any cronuts at the Exhibition. These tasty morsels have garnered a lot of media attention lately, most of it bad. You see, the Exhibition is about tradition and Donald isn’t likely to have an appetite for exotic grub.
Fare is fair.
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