A Fair to Remember

I know, the fair isn’t as good as it used to be. The carnival is held together with bubblegum and duct tape (or so the refrain goes around here). The vendors are dwindling. The music was better in Dodson. The rodeo wasn’t as good as the Wolf Point Stampede. The midway was middling (or maybe just ‘fair’). And it could all be seen at a brisk pace in about five minutes. At least, that’s what I heard from the folks who didn’t make it.

Whether sentiments like these are true, false, or something in-between is a little bit beside the point. The main thing is that they’re wrong, if not exactly inaccurate. Such sentiments are wrong because generally speaking, attendees make the fair. This is true of any fair, but especially true in a small town like ours. If the right people go, and enough of them, it’s a fun time. If you have someone you really want to ride the Ferris wheel with, it doesn’t matter if the thing is powered by hamsters. If the company is true, the truth about the fair’s merits becomes a secondary issue.

It may be true that the Valley County Fair Board needs fleshing out. Or maybe the board we have should focus more on entertainments than interpersonal squabbles of the sort that saw the removal of Gene Hartsock from its number. I don’t really know. As much as I’ve come to care about this community already, I just don’t care about how cool the fair may or may not be. I care about the people seated next to me at the rodeo (Paul Monson from the Montana Bar), the kids I saw grinning in blissful ignorance of the event’s shortcomings, the up-close-and-personal look I got shooting pictures of the PRCA bull riders (even if GHS senior Amy Nelson took all the really good shots). The list is long and involves plenty of cotton candy.

My own experience Sunday night was an affirmation of the maxim that it’s people who make a fair. I mean, come on, the 4-H kids have a lock on top billing at this thing anyway. The rest of the show is all about who you know.

Final Note: Regarding Virgil Vaupel’s response to the criticisms I levied in my July 29 column (Hockey, Hooey, and Help from the National Guard), I’d only like to add an invitation for more readers to chime in with their opinions. If you love Virgil’s work, don’t yell at me. Or do, that’s okay too, but also consider writing in with a letter that your neighbors and friends can add to their own understanding of the discussion. VV and I have one thing in common for sure: We’ve both received messages of support and encouragement that the rest of our readership deserve to know about. Pats on the back are great, but opinions about the opinion page are another thing altogether.