The State Fair

We always looked forward to going to the Illinois State Fair. The fair was held every August in Springfield and we usually went for three or four full days. And I mean full days. We’d get up by four o’clock, hurry to do the milking and chores, make sandwiches for lunch and take off for Springfield right after an early breakfast. We usually didn’t get home until well after dark—and then had to do the milking by lantern light.

Oh, so many exciting things to see at the fair! By the time I was ten or eleven Paul and I were allowed to spend the day exploring by ourselves. We would go through the livestock barns looking at all the different kinds of animals. The baby goats were our favorites. We were always amazed at the wide variety of fancy chickens in the poultry barn and the fancy rabbit breeds. And we sure enjoyed being able to climb all over the huge tractors and other farm implements. And we would never miss the full-sized statutes of a cow and calf made of butter in a refrigerated exhibit in the dairy products building.

But the really big attraction for us was Happy Hollow—with all kinds of rides, sideshows, games of chance, etc. We almost never had any money at all to spend in Happy Hollow—but it was such a vastly different atmosphere from anything else we had ever seen that we were fascinated. It was exciting to watch people throw baseballs at the trigger that would drop the jeering black man into the water tank. (“Step right up, folks, three shots for only 15¢!”) About once in every twenty or so tries some fellow would hit the little trigger and the man would drop down into the water. He would climb back up onto his seat and egg on the customer with something like, “You throw like a girl! You lucky that time, but no way you can do that again!”

When you don’t have any money, you just use your imagination. Paul and I would stand and watch the roller coasters and flying swings and loop-de-loops and other thrilling rides and when the customers screamed we could almost feel what it would be like to really be aboard.

Paul and I had never seen anything like the carnival barkers. We stood there, fascinated, with no money at all to spend, and listened to the whole spiel. The show I most wanted to see was where two motorcycle riders rode up the sides of a round wooden structure and then crisscrossed each other as they went ‘round and ‘round. You could hear the roar of those racing motorcycles all over Happy Hollow. But I never got to go in because I never had anywhere near the 25¢ price of admission. (Forty some years later I finally achieved one of my youthful ambitions. This same motorcycle show was in Happy Hollow and I had the three-dollar admission fee. Looking at it through the eyes of an eleven-year-old, I want to tell you that this motorcycle show was exciting and really great!!!!)

I remember one day at the fair when Paul and I had had an unusually abundant total of 35¢ to spend for the day. We each had a nickel chocolate milk at the dairy products building. We took more than hour looking at each and every ride before we decided on the best value for a dime each. I don’t remember how we spent the last nickel—but I do remember Dad looking at us kind of “crosswise” when we told him on the way home that we had spent the whole thirty-five cents.

Dad’s favorite day at the state fair was the Duroc hog judging day. Dad was a professional breeder with a very good reputation among Duroc stockmen and he really knew his hogs. He always got there early for a ringside seat and he “judged the judges” in every class. Another favorite area was the grain entries exhibit. Almost every year Dad won the state blue ribbon for wheat and oats because he took extra time preparing his entry. He would “stir up” the oats sample in an old-fashioned butter churn to knock off the little whiskers on each grain; that way more grains would fit into the gallon glass jar and thus his entry would weigh more than others. He would also run his samples through a fanning mill where agitating screens would cull out the smaller, lighter grains. Finally, on some rainy days the family would sit around the dining room table and sort through the sample—one grain at a time—discarding any that were off-color, or imperfect in any way. First prize was only a few dollars and a fancy ribbon—but we felt proud to be winners.

Two or three years Paul and I gave our 4-H demonstrations at the state fair, but we never won a blue ribbon there.

One year Dad found a beautiful lost puppy at the fair that was in excellent condition with kind of curly, champagne-colored hair and appeared to be of “show dog” stock. He registered at the lost & found department and made all kinds of inquiries, but no one claimed her. We brought her home and Dad named her Cleopatra. “Clee” was a great family pet for many years.