The Wyoming County Fair - A Day With Momma

The Wyoming County Fair

A Day With Momma

It’s late August and one of the reasons I wanted to be in Pennsylvania this time of year is because of the Wyoming County Fair. Three years ago, I had some amazing peanut butter ice cream from a vendor there and I have never had any other peanut butter ice cream from anywhere that I even liked, let alone loved! That and pierogies. The ladies of one of the church’s makes the best pierogies!

“What is a pierogie?” you ask.

A pierogie is a Polish turnover typically stuffed with mashed potatoes, cheese and onions. However, you can stuff this sour cream dough with just about anything you want to. The pierogies are dried, then boiled, then fried. Top it with a little butter and salt and pepper and you have an awesome side dish, unless you eat three or four of them, then you have a meal.

The pierogies at the Wyoming County Fair are boiled and not fried which keeps them very tender. Knowing some people don’t like onions, the ladies made these without onions. If you order them with onions they are on the outside. They sauté the onions and pour them over a pan of potato-cheese pierogies where they swim around together in a sea of butter. I know! I know! Not very healthy, but very tasty. And once a year probably won’t hurt me either. You get three of them for your two dollars and fifty cents.

Fair week was the last week of August this year and the last day of the Fair is always Labor Day. Thursday of Fair week Mike and I went to the Fair. The pierogies were not hard to find as the church group was set up in the same place it always is-was. (Is’s and was’s always confuse’s me.) On the other hand, the ice cream that I wanted was nowhere to be found! We walked all the way around and didn’t find it. We even asked one of the constables if he knew where the ice cream places were. He listed all the places he was aware of, but they were places that we had already checked out.

Now, Mike spent quite a bit of time talking to the constable and found out things about constables that he didn’t know. For one, constables are elected and even though they go through a lot of school and training, they are ranked below a sheriff. Constables are hired by the Fairs and other events to keep the peace, although they can also be employed by small towns or townships.

When Mike found out everything he wanted to know about constables, we moved on and eventually found our way to the tractor pulls where we sat and watched for a while.

Once we wandered away from that, we walked past the chainsaw carver as he was creating a bear.

It was hot, standing in the sun, so we didn’t watch very long. Tummy’s full of Fair food, we went on home.

That night I got a text from my beautiful, older sister. (I’m never going to let her forget she’s older.) “Are you taking Mom to the Fair with youse?” Patti asked using a Pennsylvania Dutch colloquialism. If we had been raised in the south, it would have been y’all.

“Does she want to go?” I texted back.

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her,” came the reply.

That night on the phone, I asked Momma if she’d like to go to the Fair with us on Sunday. “I’ll come and get you and everything!” I said.

“No, I guess not,” she said. “I think my days of going to Fairs are pretty much over.”

Saturday, I drove the eleven miles to Dushore to accompany Momma to Mass at St. Basil’s. Momma loves our Lord and loves to go to the beautiful church on the hill an hour early and sit with the peace and solitude of the Saints all around her and say some prayers.

Me? I’ve greeted people at the door during this time or sat in the sun on one of the marble memorial benches out front or walked around taking photos. This particular Saturday I decided to walk up the hill to the new part of this almost ancient cemetery and visit the grave of my older brother Michael, who at 53 is gone too soon from our world.

Michael rests in a spot right next to where my mother will be laid to rest when God calls her home.

Oh my goodness! This is something I didn’t expect!

“What’s that, Peg?” you ask.

I did not expect my eyes to tear up just by merely writing those words!

I kept an eye on the time and made it back to the church in plenty of time to hear Mass. Afterward, with Momma on her scooter, and me walking beside her, we headed back down the hill. “Go to the Fair with us Momma,” I blurted out. “There’s pierogies and homemade ice cream and a big book sale and all the paths are blacktopped so we can take your scooter.” I hardly took a breath as I rattled off all the things there was to see and do!

Momma was quiet for a moment as she thought it over. “Well, I don’t know. When would we go?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“I had planned on writing more on my story tomorrow,” Momma said. She is in the process of writing her memoir.

“Yeah? And I had planned on writing too,” I said. “But I can skip a week, or get it done tonight and you can write on Monday.”

“Alright,” she finally agreed.

Back at the Terrace, a housing authority where Momma lives, Mike was waiting in the Jeep. We loaded Momma and her scooter and drove to Momma’s favorite restaurant for the Saturday Night Prime Rib Special. After placing our orders, I pulled out the Fair schedule and handed it to Momma.

“There’s a Timber Show at 11:00,” Momma said after looking it over. “I’d like to see that.”

“And there’s a Lawn Mower Pulling Contest that the Robinson’s want to see,” I told her. We weren’t going with the neighbors per se, but we were planning on joining them there. “How about if we pick you up at 10:00?”

“I’ll be ready,” Momma said with a smile on her beautiful face.

Later, at home that night, I start my weekly letter. My age gets in the way of my ambitions sometimes and when bedtime rolled around, despite my intention of spending extra time writing, I was ready for bed. So I went. I made up for it though as I was up and at it again by five a.m. Around seven, I hear it.

“Hear what?” you ask.

Hear thunder, that’s what. And the skies open up and...

It. Just. Pours!

My poor laundry, I think to myself. It has been hanging on the line since the day before.

I just love to hang my laundry out where it gathers in the fresh air and sunshine! While pinning things to the line I can listen to the wind soughing through the trees, the birds chirping in the branches or just the grasshoppers fiddling in the grass if it’s too hot for the birds. It’s all music to my ears and it just doesn’t seem like a chore at all to me.

The day before, when I hung it out to dry, it was breezy-but overcast. It didn’t rain but with no sun, my laundry didn’t dry. So, I left it out. Now it was really wet!

“The heck with your laundry!” you say! “What about the Fair?”

I know, right!

The weatherman said intermittent showers, so maybe we could work around it, I thought, and kept working on my weekly letter. Before long, my phone rings and it’s Momma.

“Peggy, I don’t think we ought to go to the Fair today,” Momma said.

“It could still clear off,” I said. “Let’s give it a little while and I’ll let you know what we decide.”

An hour and a phone call later and it was decided that with the weather being so uncertain, we would postpone our trip to the Fair until Monday, the last day of the Fair. I called Momma back with the decision.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” I told her. “There’s still a Timber Show but it’s at 12:00. How about if we pick you up at 10:30?”

“Okay,” she said.

And I spent the day writing, as I expect my mother did too.

The rain showers cleared off enough in the afternoon that my laundry dried and I brought it in. The extra rinse didn’t hurt it a bit.

That evening, as I sat in front of my computer, thinking about my disappointment in not finding the peanut butter ice cream stand, knowing we were going back to the Fair, and also knowing I had a photograph of me holding the aforementioned ice cream, I searched my files and found the photo! Look at that, would ya? There some dummy stands holding the ice cream with her hand right across the name of the place. Yeah. Brilliant move on my part. Well, maybe someone will recognize the cups anyway, I tell myself and printed it off with the intention of showing it around and trying to find out who it is and where can I get some more!

“Why Peg?” you ask. “Why would you even have a picture of you holding an ice cream?”

And the answer to that is because that was the summer I worked in an ice cream store. “What would my boss say if he saw I was eating ice cream someplace else?” I asked Mike.

“Let’s find out,” Mike said and took this photo of me with the intention of ratting me out. I didn’t know I was going to like it so much!

Monday starts with a few sprinkles, but I have a really big umbrella. It would cover me, Momma and her scooter from front to back, that’s how big it is!

“What about Mike?” you ask.

Well, I guess he’ll have to fend for himself this time.

We picked Momma up, a little early, but she was ready. Driving out to the fairgrounds we pass through some sprinkles and light rain. I hoped the weatherman was right when he forecasted long dry spells between light showers.

Arriving at the fairgrounds, Mike stopped in front of one of the parking directors and rolled his window down. Okay, okay, you got me. In this day an age there are few vehicles that don’t have electric windows. Mike poked the button and put the window down. “Mom is on oxygen and uses a scooter, can we park in the handicap row?” he asked.

“Sure! Go right ahead,” he said. And even though we did not have a handicap plate or mirror tag, they were very kind in allowing us to do so.

We wandered around the fairgrounds, checking out the different vendors and I showed my photo around, but no one recognized the ice cream vendor of three years ago. It was a lost cause. Sigh. On a brighter note, I had enough time to have some pierogies before it was time for the timber show to start.

“What did Momma think of the pierogies?” you ask.

Well, I agree Momma is the litmus test in all things good. But in this case, she didn’t care for them and I, of course, love them. She would much prefer for them to be fried, nice and crispy.

At five minutes to twelve, Momma and I were in the stands waiting for the Great Lakes Timber Show to start. Okay, you got me again. Only one of us was sitting in the stands. The other one was sitting on her scooter!

Dale, our lumberjack, along with our lumberjills, Ashley and Amanda, provided us with a half hour of entertainment, education, and laughs. It was a good show!

The first thing they did was to give us a demonstration of chainsaw carving. Dale cut this way and that way and sawdust was flying and pieces of wood were falling off all around.

Finally, he stops the chainsaw and sets it on the ground.

“Dale, what is that?” Ashley asked.

“Wait, I’m not done.” He picked up his chainsaw, started it and whacked the whole top of the thing off, shuts the chainsaw off again and sets it down in the grass, once again.

“Dale, what is that?” Ashley asked again.

Dale turned, picked up the chainsaw and plopped it down on top. “Why, it’s a chainsaw stand!” he proudly declared.

We all laughed at his joke, but really what he had made was six little chairs. Amanda and Ashley picked them up and handed them out to the audience as Dale took the microphone. “Now bring them up at the end of the show and I’ll autograph them for you,” he told everyone.

Then Dale went on to tell us that almost all the events in a lumberjack show are geared around things that a lumberjack must be able to do in the performance of his day-to-day duties. All, that is, except for ax throwing. “That was purely for entertainment,” Dale told us and handed the microphone off to Ashley.

“Normally, each contestant is given three throws. Who wants to see Dale make three bullseyes in a row?” Ashley asked and we all cheered.

Dale only made one bulls eye and did I get a photo of it? No! This photo, where the ax is about to land, is the closest that I got. All the rest of my photos show the ax flying through the air.

Sigh.

The next event was log chopping. “How long do you think it will take Dale to chop through this log?” Ashley asked, inviting audience participation. “Whoever is closest will receive a prize.”

“Twenty-five seconds,” one boy yells out.

"Sixteen!” shouts another.

“Two minutes,” came another guess.

All guesses in, Dale took his place on top of the log, hitched up his pants-to the amusement of the audience-and when he was given the signal, he started chopping.

“Dale will chop halfway through the log then turn around and chop the rest of the way through from the other side,” Ashley narrated to the striking blows of the ax. In no time at all, the job was done.

“Nineteen seconds!” came the proclamation.

The young man who guessed the closest came up to claim his prize. “Here you go,” Dale said presenting him with a wood chip that Amanda had picked from the freshly cut pile. “Bring that up after the show, and I’ll autograph it for you,” Dale told him.

The boy grinned from ear to ear and just stood there looking towards his mama in the grandstand. “He’s still waiting for his prize, isn’t he?” Dale asked, and we all laughed.

Putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, he gently pushed him towards the stands. “You can sit down now.” And the show went on.

Next was the one-man saw. “How long do you think it will take Dale to saw through this log?” Ashley asked and the guesses went flying!
“Two seconds!” someone yelled.

“Two seconds!” Dale echoed. “He must think I’m Superman!”

Ashley explained that before the contest could start, the contestants must first set the saw. It was a safety thing. Right in the middle of Ashley’s speech, after Dale had already set the saw, he gave it an extra little push. Ashley stopped. “Dale, you have to wait for me to tell you to go,” she said.

“Oh,” Dale says and innocently pulls the saw back to the starting position.

“Dale!” Ashley exclaimed. “It cuts both ways!”

Once the laughter died down, the contest started in earnest and it took all of nine seconds for Dale to make the cut. The guy who guessed two seconds was actually the closest and the prize this time was the lumberjack cookie-the piece Dale cut off.

Our lumberjills demonstrated the two-man saw, which set us up for the next skit.

“I bet I can beat you with a one man saw,” Dale challenged.

“Who thinks Dale can beat us?” Ashley asked and the men cheered. “Who thinks we can beat Dale?” This time the women cheered. “All right, Dale! You’re on!”

Dale walked around to the back to get his saw and came back out with a chainsaw!

“DALE!”

“WHAT!”

Ashley turned to the crowd. “Who thinks we can still beat Dale?” And we all cheered for the lumberjills.

Before the contest started, Dale thought it was a good time to go over some chainsaw safe handling tips. He demonstrated as he instructed us on how to properly start a chainsaw. “Set it on the ground, put one hand on the top handle like this, put one foot on the back handle like this. That keeps the saw stable, then pull with your free hand,” he said. “The other approved method for starting a chain saw is by holding it firmly between your legs...”

“DALE!” Ashley yells right on cue.

“Oh,” innocent Dale says and swings the business end out from between his legs as the crowd laughs at his antics.

Dale fires up his chainsaw and makes a little cut. He turns it off and sets it down.

“Dale! What are you doing!” Ashley exclaimed.

“Setting the teeth,” he says all innocent like.

“You don’t set the teeth on a chainsaw!”

“Oh.” Dale scratches his head as he thinks about it for a second, reaches down, gets a handful of saw dust and rubs it over the freshly made cut.

“What are you doing now?” Ashley asks.

“Putting it back,” Dale said.

I saw that one coming, but I laughed anyway. It was all good fun.

The contest started and the jills on a two-man saw, beat the jack with the chainsaw.

“You weren’t even trying!” a little boy in the audience yelled, not very loud, and he was ignored.

In mock disgust at losing, Dale tossed the chainsaw to the ground. “Dale!” Ashley said incredulously. “You never treat your equipment that way!”

“I don’t,” Dale replied indignantly.

“I just saw you do it!”

“That’s not my saw!” We laughed. “I got it from the chainsaw carver’s tent.” The laughter, not completely died down from the first half of the joke, started afresh.

“I want a rematch!” Dale said. “Don’t you all think I deserve a second chance?” And the crowd roared their approval.

Dale picked up the discarded chainsaw, goes to the back and comes out carrying this big ole honk’n chainsaw. “I got this from my friend over near Detroit,” Dale said. “Tim Taylor.”

We all got the reference to the TV show Tool Time and the infamous Tim-The-Tool-Man-Taylor who notoriously souped up his tools, only to have things go wrong.

“Okay Dale. If you are going to use that you have to start with the chainsaw on the ground and your hands in the air,” Ashley said.

“I don’t like this position,” Dale said once he had complied.

“Why not?” Ashley asked.

“It’s too familiar!” And we laughed. “How about one hand in the air and the other on the log?”

“Okay,” Ashley relented.

“And you guys have to have one hand in the air too,” Dale added.

With everyone in the proper starting positions, the race began. 　

Dale lollygagged around and the girls were halfway through the log before Dale picked up his saw.

It didn’t matter though; once Dale started, he was through the log in no time flat! The jills only had time to push their saw one more time before Dale’s lumberjack cookie went rolling on the ground.

The men cheered.

The grand finale was the log rolling contest and they allowed anyone from the audience who wanted to, to come up and give it a try. The only taker was this little guy. They had him take his shoes and socks off and Amanda gave him some tips on how to stay up on the log while Dale chatted with us.

“Real log rollers use spikes on their shoes,” he told us. “But we found it doesn’t work to good with the rubber lining in our tank.”

Then Little Guy was ready and climbed in the tank and took his place on the log. Dale pushed the log to the center of the tank and Amanda yelled instructions as she demonstrated how to get the log rolling. Quickly and lightly she pattered in place. Little Guy mimicked the motion and the log started rolling.

“Stay on top!” Amanda yelled, but he couldn’t. He only lasted for about two seconds before he slipped off into the water. Little Guy waded to the edge and hopped out, dripping wet from the waist down, and we gave him a big hand for his efforts.

“Not as easy as it looks, is it?” Dale asked.

Little Guy shook his head, picked up his shoes and socks and went back to his seat in the stands.

Amanda and Ashley demonstrated log rolling with a best out of three match, which ended in a tie.

“Peg you can’t have a tie with the best out of three!” you say.

Well, Amanda won the first round, Ashley the second and they both fell off at about the same exact time on the third round, so we called it a tie and a good show!

Momma had such a good time. She smiled and laughed right along with the rest of us even though I’m sure she’s heard all or most of the jokes before. And if we had left the Fair right then and there, we both would have been happy. But we didn’t leave.

“I think I’d like to have a little ice cream?” Momma said.

“Me too!” I said.

We headed over to a little stand called Back-In-Tyme where all the ice cream is homemade.

“Where’s your business located?” Momma asked the lady at the window.

“Just here.... just fairs and things. During our off time my husband works (and she may have said as what, but I can’t recall at the moment) and I’m in nursing. I care for special needs children in their homes.”

Interesting, and admirable. I know it’s hard work.

Momma couldn’t eat very much of her maple walnut ice cream because the cold shuts down her air ways and even though I had ice cream dripping from the homemade waffle cone down onto my hand, I didn’t toss it, I toughed it out and ate all of mine!

I chatted with Michael as I ate my ice cream and before we left the picnic area, Momma asked, “Did you see this poem?”

I did see the board hanging on a tent pole and I did see it had printing on it, but did I read it? Nope! Not. One. Single. Word! “What’s it say?”

“When tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me.” Momma read and I could hear a tear in her voice. But she continued on, clear and strong. “I wish so much you didn’t cry the way you did today, While thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say, I know how much you love me-as much as I love you, Each time that you think of me, I know you will miss me, too.”

The tear was back in her voice and I needed to nip this in the bud. I raised my camera and snapped a picture of it. “I got a picture of it.”

“You did?”

“Yep. You can finish it later.”

“Okay. Let’s go look at the animals,” Momma suggested, satisfied.

We found out where the livestock barns were and with misgivings and determination, we made our way there. Misgivings because part of these paths are dirt and stone and Momma has a hard time of it on her scooter. If the stones are too big, it jerks the handles from her grip and hurts her wrists, but with some careful picking of our path, our determination paid off.

One of the first barns we came to was the sale barn with an auction in progress. Directly across from it was the cow barn.

 Winding our way between the barns was a little tricky. Not only did we have rocks to contend with, we had cow pies to watch out for too.

We get past the cow barns and the worst of the cow pies and I see that as hard as Momma tried, she got cow flop on her scooter tires anyway.

Oh, no! I thought to myself. No way can we put her scooter in the Jeep with flop on the tires. It’ll get all over the carpet. Well, maybe it’ll come off as she rides around, I think wishfully, and I keep an eye on it as we head back to the 4-H Barn.

“Peggy, check those bathrooms for me, would you?” Momma said indicating the Port-A-Jon’s sitting at the end of the barns.

I opened the door and checked the seat and it looked as good as a Port-A-Jon seat can look. Clean and dry. “It looks fine to me,” I told Momma. She pulled her scooter close to the door, got off and went into the Port-A-Jon leaving her oxygen tank sitting on the scooter. Because she couldn’t lock the door with the hose hanging through it, I stood guard, as a good and dutiful daughter does.

The act of just driving the scooter did take a lot of the flop off the tread of tires, however, it didn’t do anything for the sidewalls. I stood there, looking at it, not knowing what to do. Maybe when we get to the grass, I thought. But as soon as I had the thought, I knew it just wouldn’t work.

Momma bumps the door and I open it to let her out. She washes her hands at the really nifty hand washing station set up beside the Port-A-Jon’s and I’ll tell you what! These things are so cool! Some of them only have hand sanitizers hanging on them but this one had soap and paper towels and a little foot pedal you pump to make the water flow and a little catch basin to catch the water! The best invention ever!

Momma throws her used paper towel into the trash can and totally out of breath from her exertion, sits back down on her scooter. With the last of her energy, she gets the hoses all in order then thoroughly exhausted, leans her forearms across the handlebars and just rests, trying to catch her breath.

Me? I do everything I can to make things easier for her but there is nothing I can do now but wait. I’m standing there people watching, not bored or impatient at all when Momma says, “Okay.” She straightens up, turns her scooter on and I know she’s ready to go.

“There’s the rabbit barn, Momma,” I said indicating another set of barns ahead of us. “You wanna go see the rabbits?”

“Sure,” she says and we start off.

Once again, I notice the flop on the sidewalls of Momma’s scooter tires and something in my head clicks. Paper towels. Water. Cow flop.

Those of you who know me, are not surprised at how long it took me to see the solution to my problem.

“Wait a minute Momma,” I said.

She stops immediately, “What?”

I grab a couple of paper towels, wet them and start wiping at her tires. I don’t know what I expected to happen but I was pleased with the ease at which the flop was coming off her tires. “Back up a little,” I tell her and she complies. Once I had that one cleaned, we checked all of her tires. She’d driven through more cow pies than I thought she had! Satisfied that I had done all I could do, we check out the rest of the animals.

After the cows we saw the chickens and ducks; the geese and rabbits and even an alpaca or two. We saw the pigs with their perpetual grins...

 and this very handsome Billy goat.

Right after I took this picture of Billy, he yawned. I laughed to see a goat yawn, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

Making our way back to the Midway, we caught the last couple of pulls of a horse pulling contest. Doggone it! I know Momma would have enjoyed watching that, but what are you gonna do? Over is over!

Going back through the barns where the 4-H’ers have their displays, I overheard a word. It was just one word between two ladies chatting that catches my attention. “....rodeo....”

“Rodeo? Momma, there’s going to be a rodeo!”

Momma’s face lights up, as I knew it would. “Oh, yeah?”

I went on ahead in search of a Fair schedule and discovered that there was indeed a rodeo. We missed it on the schedule of events because the word rodeo was preceded by the words high school. It was a High School Rodeo and it wasn’t long until it started. We found out where it was being held and this time, misgivings be damned! We were going come grass or dirt road!

Momma finds a spot to sit in the shade and pulls her oxygen tank onto her lap. She unzips the top and checks to see how much oxygen she has left. “Peggy, I’m going to need that other tank of oxygen.”

I hightailed it to the car to get the spare tank for her and who do you suppose is sitting in the air conditioning, napping? Yep. Mike. He was whooped and needed a ten-minute power nap. I get the spare oxygen tank from the back seat and decide to leave the umbrella. I was tired of carrying it, and we hadn’t needed it all day. “No,” something told me the moment I put it down. And never doubting my instincts, I picked it back up and took it with me.

I made my way back to the horse track where I left Momma in the shade of a pavilion. I hand her the tank and she switches it over.

“Let’s get closer,” I say to her.

“I have to stay in the shade,” Momma said.

Well, I knew, that from where she was sitting, she wasn’t going to see a darn bit of the rodeo. Luckily, fortunately, accidentally, or just by the grace of God, I was still packing around this huge umbrella. Umbrellas aren’t just to keep the rain off, you know. They are also really good at keeping the sun off you too! “I have this!” I exclaimed triumphantly and raised my arm, umbrella clasped firmly in hand.

“Okay,” Momma said. “Let’s go.”

“The only thing is, we have to make sure we don’t get in anyone’s way with this big old thing.”

We found a gap in the grandstands, right behind the loudspeakers, where Momma had a pretty good view of the arena. I stood over her, keeping her in the shade of the umbrella as we watched the bronco busting through the bars of the fence. Only a loving and devoted daughter would do that for her mother, don’t you think? About the time the next event starts, some lady comes and sits down right at the end of the grandstand, totally blocking Momma’s view. Momma stood, trying to see around her, but she wasn’t having much luck. After we missed all of the action, we abandoned this spot in search of a better view. The next and only other break in the grandstands had a young gal sitting in a camp chair with her empty baby stroller parked right in the middle of it.

“Excuse me, may we share this space with you?” I asked.

The gal glanced over at us, saw Momma on her scooter and readily agreed. She moved the stroller and Momma and I had the best seat ever!

People came and people went. Especially when it started to sprinkle. “I guess we had better go too,” Momma said with a tinge of regret in her voice. Big fat drops start hitting us, and off she went! Just like that! Not even waiting for me. But in her defense, Momma’s scooter, as with most things these days, has electronic components and must be kept dry. I caught up with her a little way from the grandstand and I opened the umbrella.

“Momma! This umbrella is so big it covers your whole scooter!” I told her. “We don’t have to leave.”

She stopped and surveyed the situation, looking forward and back, seeing that what I had said was true. “We don’t?”

“Nope. We can keep your scooter dry.”

A smile returns to her beautiful face and we turn around and go right back to our spot, hardly missing a thing. Luckily, it was only a few sprinkles that soon stopped and I put the umbrella down.

Up next was the goat tying event. Have you ever seen a goat tying event? I have to say, this was my first. The goats were tied to a stake, the horse and rider came galloping full speed towards the goat. Sometimes the goat stayed in place but most times he ran away. At least as far as his tether would let him, that is. The rider jumps off, falls off, or slides off, reels the goat in, picks him up, throws him down, captures a hoof, knots the rope around it, gathers in two more hooves, wraps them up, ties them off, and the clock stops when both hands are raised into the air. They only have to tie three of the four hoofs-hooves, hoofs...hooves.... They only have to tie three of the four feet together and the goat must stay tied for so many seconds after the roper is done. The goat is released, the time recorded, and a new or different goat is brought in for the next rider.

There was this one goat, guys, that didn’t want anything to do with this event. Once tossed to the ground and tied, he didn’t struggle at all. Even when he was released from the ropes he didn’t attempt to get up.

“He’s not moving Mama,” a little kid in the stands next to us cried.

“He’s alright,” she consoled, “he’ll get up in a minute.” And he did.

Before the next event could start, they needed to remove the stakes the goats had been tied to. And this is where the all-important rodeo clown comes in. Hollywood kept us entertained while the stakes were being removed.

“I’ve been practicing with my bullwhip,” Hollywood says taking center arena and brandishing a very long bullwhip. He flips it several times producing a loud crack with each whip. “Who wants to see a double crack?” Hollywood asks. The crowd cheers as Hollywood produces two cracks with one whip. The crowd claps in appreciation and Hollywood performs his double crack several more times. “How about three times?” The crowd cheers again and Hollywood takes a few practice whips setting himself up to produce a triple crack before the whip hits the ground.

Now, I have to tell you that Hollywood did do what he set out to do but the third crack came when the energy of the whip was almost spent and it was more like a soft pop than a sharp crack. Nonetheless, we cheered and clapped for him anyway.

“Who wants to help with my next trick?” Hollywood asks of the crowd. No one volunteered and he had to call a few more times for a volunteer. “Isn’t there one brave person out there who’ll come down and help me out?” Manhood’s challenged, Hollywood got his volunteer. The volunteer came down from the stands, crawled through the rails of the fence, strode across the arena to where Hollywood waited for him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Jim,” the volunteer replied.

“Let’s give Jim a big hand!” And we all clapped and cheered for Jim. Hollywood produces a long slip of paper from someplace and hands it to Jim. “Hold this in this your hand and put your arm out,” Hollywood tells him and demonstrates how he wants Jim to stand. “Perfect,” Hollywood says as Jim adopted the pose and Hollywood moves to take his place several feet in front of Jim.

Jim is smiling but looks a little uncertain as Hollywood starts cracking the bullwhip, moving closer and closer to the paper in Jim’s outstretched hand. A few more cracks and the end of the paper goes flying. With the next crack of the whip another piece of the paper is torn free. One more time and Jim is left holding nothing but a nub of paper-which he quickly drops. Everyone claps and Hollywood hands Jim another piece of paper then returns to his spot.

“Put it in your mouth,” Hollywood commands. Jim’s eyes get real big and the audience laughs as Jim complies.

“Turn sideways,” Hollywood says and Jim does. “Now lean forward.” Jim bends at the waist trying to get the paper as far from his body as he can, I imagine. “Straighten up a little. Good. Now head up.” With Jim in the position he wants him in, Hollywood starts cracking the whip testing his aim. Then crack! and the end of the paper goes flying, crack! and another piece flies off. Jim’s nerve breaks and he spits the paper out before Hollywood can crack the whip a third time.

“Give Jim a big hand!” And with the applause of the audience, Jim takes his seat in the stands.

All the stakes from the goat tying contest have been removed and it’s time for the calf roping event. We watched as the calf was released from the chute and the teen on horseback came charging after him, rope swinging in the air. “Throw it! Throw it!” people in the stands yell and the calf makes it to the other end of the arena and is up against the gate.

“They have twenty-five seconds to rope their calf,” the announcer says. The kid gets behind the calf, gets him off the gate and going again, starts the rope swinging in the air and before any attempt is made, the buzzer goes off. Times up. One of our young cowgirls had two ropes and as her first attempt to rope the calf failed, she was allowed to try with her second rope. That, by the way, fell short too. There were like six or seven kids in this event and hardly any of them were able to rope their calf.

“They have to get them right after they leave the chute,” Momma said with a shake of her head. “Or they won’t get them at all.”

The older teens did much better with their event which they had to rope their calf and hog-tie it. But not all of them succeeded at that either.

The thing that struck me the most was that the calves knew which gate to exit through. In fact, once released from either the chute or the ropes, they headed straight for the exit. Is it a fluke of their nature? Or have they been through this so many times that they are trained? I don’t know.

Then they had an event for teams. One rider roped the front end of the calf and the second rider had to rope the rear legs and stretch the calf out. We only had one maybe two teams that could complete the task.

Keep in mind this was a kids rodeo, some older and some younger. They really do start the kids young in these games and the youngest ones are called Juniors. They had their own competitions and did not compete against the older kids. They were all awesome!

In our new spot I wasn’t able to deploy the umbrella, but luckily, I didn’t need to, as the sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. By the time it broke through for long enough that I thought I needed to shelter Momma, there was no one sitting in our proximity, and I could pop the umbrella open far enough to shade her. After a while the sun goes behind the clouds again and the finale of the rodeo was about to take place. Bull riding! This was strictly a big kid event.

I hadn’t taken any photos of the rodeo so far because of where we were sitting. Our eyes can ignore the fence and focus on the action, but the camera can’t. So I didn’t even try. But now I looked around and there was no one between me and the top of the grandstand.

“Momma.”

“What?” she asks taking her attention from the clown doing his spiel in the center of the arena.

“I’m going up on top to take some pictures,” I told her.

“Alright,” she replied.

“What do you call a cow leaning against a fence?” Hollywood, the rodeo clown, asked.

“I don’t know. What do you call a cow leaning against a fence?” the announcer replied.

“Lean beef!” came the answer and we laughed. “What do you call a cow laying down?” came the next joke and not waiting for a reply, Hollywood answers his own question. “Ground beef!” And we laughed again.

We had five bulls and five riders. As the first rider was making himself ready, the announcer said, “He’s getting his helmet in place. Tell me. Why would you put a helmet on a head to protect a brain that lets you get on a wild bull in the first place?” And we all laughed.

Bull riding is an exciting event, let me tell you! The first guy rode even with his right wrist in a cast! He didn’t last long though and didn’t make it eight seconds to the buzzer.

The next rider touched the bull just as soon as he came out of the chute and even though he made it to the buzzer, he was disqualified.

The next guy lost his seat before the buzzer...

 and so did the next guy.

It all came down to the final rider. “He has to make it to the buzzer for all of us!” the announcer said. And he did. He stayed on his bull for the full eight seconds. His dismount was a little clumsy, and I love this shot with a boot in the air and a hand almost touching the ground.

Then the rodeo was over.

Everyone, including us, started drifting away from the stands and I called Mike to see where he was.

“I’ll meet you at the picnic area,” he said.

Along the way we meet up with Stephanie, our neighbor, and we visit with her for a while.

“How much oxygen do you have left?” I asked Momma. Never, did I ever, think we would stay at the fair for so long.

“I’ll be okay until around six,” Momma said.

I looked at the time on my cell phone. It was twenty minutes to five.

“I’m hungry,” Steph says.

“Me too,” Mike echoed.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get a bite to eat then we better get Momma home.” I expected we would need an hour of travel time.

We all headed in different directions to get our supper, agreeing to meet back at the picnic tent-all except Momma. “I’m not hungry,” she declared, and waited there for us.

On my way to get a slice of pizza, I passed the sugared nut stand and got Momma a medium size bag of the pecans to take home with her. The pizza place was busy and I couldn’t get to the counter to place my order. Not wanting to wait, I settled for a soft pretzel instead. I made my way back to the picnic tent where Mike sat with his sandwich, Steph hers, and we visited as we ate.

Me? I worried the whole time about Momma running out of oxygen and kept checking the time on my phone. Finally, at ten after five, when all the food was consumed, I jumped up, and firmly stated, “Let’s go!” That sounded abrupt and rude, so to soften it, I added, “We have to get Momma home before her oxygen runs out.” Goodbyes were said and off we went.

In the car, on the way home, we talked about our day at the Fair. “I liked when they brought out that mechanical cowboy and Hollywood had a gunfight with him,” Momma said with a chuckle. And in my mind’s eye I could see the skit unfolding. It went much like this.

Two cowboys come from one end of the arena dragging a very stiff legged cowboy between them and it almost looks like they had his hands tied too. What in the world? I wondered. Then from the other end of the arena came a cowboy with a platform. They met in the center of the arena and the cowboys stood the man they had been dragging up on the platform. I thought they were going to do a mock hanging.

“How do you like my new money-making idea?” Hollywood asked.

“What is it Hollywood?” the announcer asked.

“It’s a gunslinger! All you have to do is put a quarter in and you can try your luck. I’m going to put them all over the country and I’m going to get rich!”

“Show us how it works Hollywood,” the announcer said.

“Alright, I will!” he declared. Hollywood fishes in his pocket for a quarter, walks over and inserts it into the belly of the gunslinger.

“Howdy partner!” the mechanical cowboy said in his mechanical voice. “Take three paces, turn and draw your gun!” The mechanical cowboy starts moving and Hollywood starts scrambling for a gun belt. “One,” says the mechanical voice.

“Wait a minute!” Hollywood hollers as he reaches for a gun belt.

“Two.”

“Wait!” Hollywood cries all in a panic.

“Three!” and Hollywood doesn’t even have his gun belt fastened when the gunslinger pulls his gun and fires. Crack went the cap, or maybe it was a firecracker.

“I wasn’t ready! Let’s try this again!” Hollywood fishes in his clown-pants pocket for another quarter and inserts it into the gunslinger's belly. The gunslinger comes to life again. “Howdy partner! Take three paces, turn and draw your gun! One...”

Hollywood, gun belt in place, takes his paces.

“Two. Three!”

Hollywood turns and tries to draw his guns but can’t! They get hung up on the holster!

Crack came the shot from the gunslinger's gun.

“My gun got stuck!” Hollywood hollers. “Let’s try this again.”

For the third time he fishes a quarter from his pocket, inserts it into the belly of the gunslinger and for the third time we hear, “Howdy partner! Take three paces, turn and draw your gun! One...”

As Hollywood is taking his paces, his gun belt starts to slide down.

“Two.....”

Hollywood tries frantically to keep from losing the gun belt but nothing works and it slides the whole way down around his ankles.

“Three!”

Hollywood is all bent over, bottom in the air, and we hear crack! A great cloud of smoke comes from Hollywood’s backside as he stands, grabs his bottom and starts dancing around as if his butt is on fire. With the crowd laughing, Hollywood dances right out of the arena.

“That guy playing the mechanical cowboy was good, wasn’t he?” I asked Momma.

“No. No, no. That was mechanical,” Momma said.

“No it wasn’t. It was not. It was a real live man Momma.”

“But I thought...the way that he was acting...I though he was mechanical!”

“He wanted you to think that!”

“But he put a quarter in?” Momma said.

“They were just pretending.”

“Oh. Ooooooh.”

“They had the routine down pat, didn’t they Momma?”

“He had me fooled. I really thought it was a mechanical thing!” Momma said dismayed. Then she laughed at herself. “That makes it even better!” She was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “Boy that Hollywood was a show all in himself, wasn’t he?” And I agreed that indeed-he was!

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, pleased that we took Momma to the Fair and pleased that she had such a good time. Then it occurred to me, that had it not been for my older sister and her text asking if I was taking Momma to the Fair, none of us would have had such a fabulous day! I would not have gone up to see the animals nor would I have sat and watched the rodeo. I pulled out my phone. “On the way home-we took Momma to the fair. You should call her later and see if she had a good time.” I texted Patti. Then I grinned. I pretty much knew what kind of response she would get. None the less, I was delighted when I got this text message back from Patti the next day.

“Mom had a grand time. She said it was a real treat! She really enjoyed the kids rodeo, the huge billy goat and other animals. She said it was 25-30 years since she had been to a fair. You did good taking her!”

Patti, you did good knowing that I should take her.

It isn’t that it wasn’t in my heart to take Momma, it’s that I’m such a slow thinker that the Fair would have been over before I’d have thought of it on my own!

I’m going to end with the poem,

When Tomorrow Starts Without Me

When tomorrow starts without me, and I’m not there to see,

It the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me.

I wish so much you didn’t cry the way you did today,

While thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say.

I know how much you love me-as much as I love you,

Each time that you think of me, I know you will miss me, too.

But when tomorrow starts without me, please try to understand,

That an angel came and called my name, then took me by the hand.

She said my place was ready in heaven far above,

And that I had to leave behind all those I love.

But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eye,

For all my life I’d always thought, I didn’t want to die.

I had so much to live for, so much yet to do,

It seemed almost impossible that I was leaving you.

I thought of all the yesterday, the good ones and the sad,

I thought of all the love we shared and all the fun we had.

If I could relive yesterday, just even for a while,

I’d say goodbye and kiss you, and maybe see you smile.

But then I fully realize that this could never be,

For emptiness and memories would take the place of me.

And when I thought of worldly things I might miss come tomorrow,

I thought of you, and when I did, my heart was filled with sorrow.

When I walked through Heaven’s gates, I felt so much at home,

When God looked down and smiled at me, from His great golden throne.

He said, “This is eternity and all I have promised you,

Today your life on earth is past, but here life starts anew.

I promise no tomorrow, but today will always last,

And since each day’s the same way, there's no longing for the past.

You have been so faithful, so trusting and so true.

Though there were times you did some things you knew you shouldn’t do.

And you have been forgiven and now at last you’re free.

So won’t you come and take My hand and share My life with Me?”

When tomorrow starts without me, don’t think we’re far apart,

For every time you think of me, I’m right here in your heart.