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In a ‘Fair’ World, It
Would Be Smiling Time
A John Mellencamp song comes to my mind every summer at this time. Titled “County Fair” it takes a dark and depressing turn, yet one bright lyric sticks in my heart and makes me smile:
“Kids with eyes as big as dollars / Rode all the rides”.
That, in a single image, sums up the Ventura County Fair to me – kids having their thrills riding carousels and roller coasters, trains and the Tilt-a-Whirl and, of course, slow turns on the giant Ferris wheel with its seagull eye’s view of the ocean and Ventura Pier and city below.
Sadly, a new Fair Poster for 2020 was not to be.
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.’s famous invention debuted at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Remarkably, that was actually 18 years after the debut of the Ventura County Fair.
Our 145th edition was scheduled to have opened its gates yesterday, July 31. Because of coronavirus, however, some 300,000 smiles have been cancelled and the turnstiles will dutifully remain locked. Like you, I am disappointed.
I had planned to take my young granddaughter to her first Fair this year. Instead of making new memories with her, I must be content with reminiscing about two other little girls with eyes as big as dollars.
The first girl, then 5, went to her first Fair alone with her father. Her biggest thrill that afternoon was riding the Ferris wheel. On their drive home, as her father retells it, she could be heard softly whispering to herself, “Ferris wheel, Ferris wheel, Ferris wheel,” so as not to forget the name.
Arriving home, the girl – now my wife – raced inside and excitedly told her mom: “I rode the merry-go-round!”
A second Ferris wheel memory was captured in a photograph that remains one of my favorites of my own little girl. It is in black-and-white, taken candidly by a Star photographer before newspapers became colorful, and hangs in a gold frame in her childhood bedroom.
Frozen in time nearly three decades past, she is 4 years old and my arm is wrapped around her as we ride the Ferris wheel. It was her first time at the Ventura County Fair and she will tell you it is one of her earliest vivid memories. I imagine most adults remember similar childhood Fair magic.
The Fair still makes kids of us all. If not the rides, then the exhibits or games or concerts still give us eyes as big as dollars. The Fair is a time machine. For 12 days each summer, we turn back the calendar.
Our Fair roared back after World War II, the last time it was cancelled, and it will do likewise after this war with COVID-19 ends. For now, sadly, the win-a-stuffed-animal games and whirling rides are on hold.
The chocolate-covered, deep-fried, bacon-filled food concoctions are on hold, as are the amazing exhibits of paintings and photographs, quilts and cakes, flowers and plants. The mini-pigs and giant rabbits the size of bulldogs and 4-H livestock auctions are also on hold.
In short, being a silver dollar-eyed 4-year-old, no matter one’s true age, is on hold.
Mellencamp’s song concludes as it opened: “Well the County Fair left quite a mess / In the county yard.” It is a lyric that carries extra melancholy this year since there will be no tents to fold, no rides to take down, no happy mess left behind.
And no new memories left behind, either.
However, since legend has it that Babe Ruth once played an exhibition baseball game at this very Seaside Park site, the late-season motto of sad-but-hopeful baseball fans seems in order: “Wait ’til next year!”
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …
- Personalized signed copies are at WoodyWoodburn.com