Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Freyburg 2011

A blind accordionist playing Polka tunes.


Two odd things. This is a mechanical gas pump (on the border of Maine and NH on Rt. 25) and there was another pump that sold "Real Gas" with no ethanol for $1 more per gallon.


This Tractor basically obeys the driver's will. He has tamed the tractor with his girth.

Story Land 1977: Nathan wants to go on the big boy rides.
I whine. "He always gets to do what he wants. I want to go on the buccaneer pirate ship too!"
I'm too short. My mother looks stunning in a peasant dress and paisley blouse. My father frets and frowns wearing plaid pants.
"Don't go too far away. Oggy! That's far enough!"
I pout until my mother comforts me. Then I get stung by a bee on the hand as I reach around a white railing.
"It hurts!"
Dad buys me a consolation ice cream cone that tastes like real milk and sugar. It melts on my hand. My mother washes my hand for me in a faucet and then says "Lets go on a tour! In a pumpkin pulled by a horse!"
I'll do anything to please her and we get in this pumpkin carriage that now is on exhibit at the Freyburg fair. It's been retired, much like my family, as within 2 years it had melted away like a vanilla ice cream cone on a hot summer day.
"Look, Oggy, do you see the ducks?"
And if I saw them or not I would say, "Yes."



Two years in a row I've been in Freyburg for the fair. Last year I was recovering from the night on bald mountain with no light. This year I took the $15 plunge and saw a few things I liked. One was the Sky Diver ride that is my ultimate nostalgia carnival ride because Brad and I went on one of those in 1982 (maybe this same one) when the carnival came to the south mill pond when the hot songs on the DJ'd rides were "Abracadabra" by Steve Miller and "Hurts So Good" by John Mellencamp and "Hold Me" by Fleetwood Mac. Any time I hear those songs I will think of this ride. This particular ride, Sky Diver, was our favorite. Brad was probably stoned or drunk and that's why he had so much fun but I was totally sober and laughed because at the very height of the circle we had turned upside down and all the quarters in our pockets came tumbling out (we had probably $20 of quarters in our pockets) and filled the compartment with money that actually hovered in front of our eyes weightless until the descent began and our stomachs turned and my red sox hat fell and the money slipped through the window cages to the greedy hands on the ground below. We laughed as only 11 year olds can laugh.


Newest sensation? Pork Wings. Sounds gross. looked gross. Wouldn't buy them. Wouldn't love them. Fried oreo cookies on the other hand...

Pictured below is the prettiest girl at the 4H club exhibit at the fair, wrangling her two prize oxen. I followed her around trying to get a better picture until I got distracted by the fabric arts exhibit, where I bought rug hooking material for my latest "get rich slowly" scheme. The shape of her body in those painted-on jeans as she poured water for the oxen and fed them hay really gave me hope for humanity. Nothing else about this fair made me feel the way I felt when I looked at her. Her smile, untainted by Cosmopolitan or People magazine, was worth the $15 admission.


Later on a Patsy Cline tribute band played and old folks danced in the misty night. Then I went to sleep until someone banged on the side of my van at 2 am:
"Hey in theyah!"
"Yes?"
"Yah Goht tah moov yah vahn. I gaht two truahks gottah pahk heah in hahf an owah!"
"Ok. I'll move. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

That's how New England welcomed back their long lost native son.
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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.