Generally, it’s a couples’ world, and you notice it as you travel the world. But I felt it most vividly years ago when I was dropping my son off at college in upstate New York. Driving back home, I passed The New York State Fair. I had never been to a state fair, and I had the urge to pull over and see the 700-pound sows, and the faded rock bands, and eat the sweet sticky stuff purveyed from booths, luring passersby like forbidden fruit.
So I parked and entered, and what I found, because I was looking, was that on that particular summer day, among thousands of milling visitors, I seemed to be the only one on my own. Oh there was the occasional man or woman waiting outside the portable toilets, and a frazzled solo mom or dad with a kid in tow. But otherwise everybody seemed to be with somebody or somebodies they could talk to.
I could have been in one of those old science fiction movies from the 1950s when a strange creature is dropped into Earth and walks among the people, looking just like them, but not of them. I felt like one of the “Coneheads” from those old Saturday Night Live skits, where Dan Ackroyd, as the father, Beldar, talked almost naturally, but not quite. “I would prefer a cooled cola drink.” "Could you lead me to the correct corner?” “May I place my hand on your spherical appendage?”
Yes, I felt I had a cone on my head, but I ate the sticky stuff – flannel cakes and fried dough and bright red candied apples and pink cotton candy. Just a bit of all of it. And I touched a rooster’s comb for the first and only time in my life, and it felt like a giant Gummybear. And I listened to banjo music and felt free and easy that summer day, and thought about all the single people who may not have gone to the fair, just because they were alone.
For those of you on your own this summer, go to the fairs, or the shows, or the concerts. Straighten that cone on your head, plow into the crowds, and eat the sticky stuff. In fact, let's all go out and enjoy the simpler joys of life.
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Comments
I love fairs.
consonantsandvowels, the $-H club parade sounds adorable.
cartouche, sorry about your travel mess-up. It's especially bad when it's a short trip. That's why simple trips are often more satisfying.
LandP, what is a spam contest? Eating the most spam? or creating the most spam? ;)
Also a pitch-perfect sketch of what it feels like to be alone in a group of families. As the only childless member of my extended Michigan clan, I have the same feeling when I visit there. "Conehead" is the PERFECT analogy. You are such a perceptive and funny writer.
LnotL, Iowa sounds like it should be the granddaddy. Wanna go and research it some time, sans cones?
Michael, you gummy bear, thank you for the generous offer and I will definitely take you up on it when we meet sometime I hope.
And boy I love a good state fair. Southern California doesn’t seem to do them quite the same way as I remember from my childhood in upstate NY, though. My cone’s gone – now that I have a wife and two boys – but I can’t find a decent fair nearby, with or without OESheepdog’s one-toothed but groomed oddballs. Guess I have to look around some more.
Laurel, I was born in Iowa (but got to Texas as fast my mother could bring me) and have been to the Iowa State Fair a number of times. Texas wins -- in my book.
Guess I've lead a sheltered life. :-D
Off now to consume mass quantities. Thumbed for conical composition.
I can't say I have ever felt a rooster comb, but I had the soup..
Bill, not sure of the mass quantities you're consuming, but have fun.
Buffy, you're so sophisticated, I would have assumed you had some connection or other to a cock's comb. ;)
http://www.the3day.org/goto/juliedelio2009
But the strangest thing I ever did may have been going to Disneyland alone, which sounds similar to what you did here. I'd been a million times growing up (I lived near it) but I knew (since my parents had died) that it was probably the last time I'd be near it for a long time, so decided to go one more time, just for and by myself. It was very odd, but I still enjoyed it. And I think it's important to get ourselves to do this kind of stuff, as you say.
Silkstone, you sound like you've achieved the perfect balance between living solo and achieving togetherness. That would be my goal --to grab at life, whatever way, and keep moving ahead.
RATED with a plastic cup of Lone Star beer
Bob, plastic cups or none at all!
I'd still want company on the fair's ferris wheel, though!
I wonder if a Renaissance Fair would be a fun solo experience?
Monte ;-)
All shiny and new again.hope you like it.:)
The night before our wedding in Aug. 1992, my late husband took me to the Iowa State Fair, my first ever. We attended a reunion performance by the Everly Brothers. "Our" song was "Let It Be Me," and when they began singing it, Phil grabbed me, pulled me into the aisle, shouted to the crowd, "She'll be my wife in the morning!" and danced with me with thousands of well-wishers looking on. Conehead explorations, yes. Lonely fair excursions for me, not so much.
On a much lighter note, I had a visual of you as the female and ever so much prettier version of Templeton (Charlotte's Web) through your description of your taste fest..."a fair is a veritable smorgasbord..." :-)
--rated--
Mothership, that seems like a scene from a movie. There was one called "State Fair." I think Pat Boone was in it. So romantic!