The Fair

Hummm...I'll call this "Waiting to show my horse at the fair"...just so it will fit my story!

As Del and I drove to the fair today he dictated another story. We missed having our own children and grandchildren with us, but we ran into our nephew and his family! You can’t help but run into someone you know while searching for food! Speaking of food - Del ate a hamburger and I had scone nuggets, our traditional food choice at the fair. We broke our tradition of getting an ice cream cone though, but there’s always next year to follow tradition again.

Del with his nephew Kevin Adams and his wife Katie,
plus their children: Oakley, Rhett, & Cree

Del & Trudy at the Eastern Idaho State Fair, September 2016

Here’s Del’s story. Enjoy! --- 

Fair time has always been kind of a unique part of our family tradition and Idaho culture. My earliest recollection of the fair experience goes back to a very young age. My grandma and grandpa Wootton lived just a couple of blocks from the Eastern Idaho State Fairgrounds. We would often go to their home and walk to the fair. In these rural communities the fair was always a journey of discovery. It was a time when all of the livestock people brought and showed their prized horses, cows, sheep, pigs as well as the latest agricultural equipment. As a boy I just loved to go to the fair and climb around on the tractors and combines. They were the newest and latest, and of course, not something we could even dream of having on our own farm. One of my favorite commercial displays, of which there were many, was the water pump booth where they made a little pond with an irrigation pump constantly circulating a big stream of water to demonstrate the proficiency of their pumps. There was also the Culligan Water display where the illusion of a faucet suspended in mid-air with water coming out of it was a source of amazement to me as a small child. At one point I finally realized the water that was coming down obscured a clear tube going up in the middle of the falling water. One of the giveaways at that booth was a headband with a long big colored feather. That was a must-have as a child. There were balloons and pencils and popcorn just for walking past a booth. Of course, the nicest thing about the fair was the endless variety of foods which were available including elephant ears, square ice cream coated with chocolate and nuts, as well as the usual pronto pups and hamburgers. And the fair wasn’t complete without a ride on the scrambler. 

One of my fondest memories was seeing my grandma Pearl sitting on a bench outside of the Home Craft building visiting with all of the other ladies. It seemed like to a little boy that grandma knew pretty much everybody who was at the fair. It really was a heart-warming experience as a child to see how everyone came together at fair time to see what was new in the world, to visit, and exchange pleasantries. My dad was always, of course, most interest in the horse and cattle aspect of the fair and we often had quarter horses that we showed and worked with.

For most of our children’s growing up years we have kept the tradition of at least spending a few hours at the fair and it always brings back pleasant memories of times spent in good wholesome family activity. There really isn’t any way of explaining the fair if you’ve not actually been there to experience the sight, sounds and smells of all that makes a fair a fair. Everything tastes better at the fair and life just feels good there.

Del at the Power County 4-H Horse Show with Rubber Star, August 1967

Side note: Speaking about a “good wholesome family activity” I love the 7^th paragraph in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” where it lists 9 principles that will help marriages and families be successful. Being involved in “wholesome recreational activities” is one of the nine. Here’s a link to the one page document called: “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”