When everyone tried to go through the “Haunted Pirate” dark ride, Kim’s car started shooting sparks and flames out the back like an old zip cord motorcycle. Lauren and Ashley screamed (a lot) and told Kim to move her hair.
Then Lauren turned to me, wisely stationed on the ground, and shrieked, “I survived the friggin’ Wheel of Death, now I’m gonna die in this crappy haunted house.”
The
clueless, anti-svelte and pungent with rainwater and mud attendant tried to
push them up the first hill and failed.
He then called his identical looking (and smelling) friend from another
ride to help. Eventually they gave up
and let the passengers walk off while they grunted and strained to hold the car
from rolling down onto them. A sane,
logical crowd would have shut down the ride.
However, someone higher in authority (and even more disheveled looking)
showed up to man the ride while the goofball twins pushed Lauren and Ashley all
the way through the (and this may not be the right word) “attraction.” During their ride they saw…
Nothing!
Because (duh) it was shorted out.
Chrissy was allowed the added bonus thrill of having to pull herself and
Joey through most of the ride in order to escape, as they just made it inside
when it powered down, and the Fair ran out of extra attendants for manual
labor.
The
famous Reithoffer traveling “ten in ones” and sideshows of yesteryear were
already long gone. But they still
supplied a couple trailers hearkening back to those days on the midway.
We
decided we would not have a complete life without seeing “Angel the Amazing
Snake Girl”. The non-athlete guy out
front didn’t seem to care. Not only
didn’t he try to draw a crowd, but he sat there reading a book ignoring us, and
wouldn’t let us in without exact change.
Sadly,
he must have been sick the day in Carny U. where they teach that the Barker is
the real entertainment the marks are paying for at a sideshow.
Finally,
we ventured up the steps full of soon to be shattered anticipation. I suppose the painted side of the trailer did
say, “The head of a beautiful girl, and the body of a snake” and made no claims
about the two of them being connected in any way, shape of form.
But
when we saw this pretty young woman’s face sticking through the top of a table,
with a cheesy mirror under it to make the table top look thin, and what looked
like a large wooden sausage coiled around her head, we were pretty much
speechless. Someone asked her to move
around, but she said she was tired. No doubt thinking, “of my lot in life,” to
complete the sentence.
“Great Gig,” I said trying to be enthusiastic,
throwing in a big thumbs up to punctuate my earnestness.
“Yeah...thanks,” she answered, looking
completely aware of her severe need for career counseling.
As
we walked back, I was stopped in my tracks by a pair of pretty eyes in a snack
booth. As they were in a girl’s head,
and not in a jar on the counter, I didn’t run away in horror. Since my brain
was shut down due a lifelong weakness for nice eyes, I was startled when a guy
asked “Can I help you?”
“Nachos,”
I cleverly replied, not quite registering that I wasn’t having a conversation
with the person I was focusing on.
I
can only assume that my stomach had taken control while my brain was being
sparkled into unconsciousness, because there is no way I would have consciously
made this order in a location with the appearance that “Frito’s” are considered authentic Mexican
cuisine. He then passed my order to some
big Famer Ed looking guy in the back.
The master chef proceeded to take the nachos with the size and texture
of poker chips, in ones and twos, and arrange then in the tray like in was a
bouquet for his grandmother’s funeral.
Finally, he was done, and then placed a single molecule of cheese in the
cup, and continued at this pace till he deemed it complete.
I
was making some attempt to enjoy this soggy, bland, food like snack when my
sister grabbed my arm yelling, “You have to see this, otherwise you won’t
believe me!” She then dragged me though
a craft barn. At the other end was a
clown (an official one, not another ride attendant pushing someone.) just about
eligible for Medicare.
He
was tormenting little children and blowing up balloons with a live goat. Now, I know it was just some bad sleight of
hand covering a pump in his sleeve, but I don’t think this animal could have
looked less happy if the clown was blowing up the balloons for real, using a
random orifice of the goat each time.
Having definitely seen EVERYTHING (including far more rain soaked
livestock than any human being should see, or smell in a lifetime) we drove
back to the cabins.
The
tales of our return should have dissuaded anyone else from trying to recapture
childhood memories. But this is Up the
Lake people we’re talking about here.
Traditionally putting ourselves in to ridiculous situations is our
mission statement.
When
Nick (Chrissy and Joe’s brother, and the leader of our childhood band of Fair
going hooligans) came up Friday night, he was crushed that he was unable to
join our nostalgic near death experiences.
We sallied forth yet again on Saturday morning, when Nick, Chrissy, her
baby, and Kim and I headed back for round two of the fair.
The
drive up was made much more enjoyable because Nick was driving Chrissy’s
car. Her car had an oddly placed horn
button, or at least oddly placed based on Nick’s normal driving style. He’d
honk it accidentally every five miles or so, prompting us all to wave at some
imaginary friend at the side of the road.
Up
the Lake people always go that extra mile so the locals wouldn’t think we was
“rude city folk.”
It
took forever to get past the town’s trademark only stoplight that indicated the
Fair was near.
This
was, because of the insanely huge Saturday Fair crowds. It was this adventure that prevented any
future visit on a weekend.
What
may have been Rhinebeck’s only police man was at Rhinebeck’s only stoplight
trying to help direct traffic, helping us to eventually reach the Row Nazis,
who parked us on a soccer field somewhere just outside of Schenectady. Once we finally reached the fairgrounds, we
were stunned by the mob. Every game
hunter, farmhand, and middle-aged biker between Albany and New York City was
putting in an appearance.
We
squeezed through for a quick stint at the Midway to duck out of a sudden
cloudburst. Shattered that he missed the
excitement of Angel the Snake Girl, Nick paid for admission to the trailer
featuring “The World’s Smallest Woman.”
“Yup...She’s
small” was the feedback we got from our crack reporter.
We
played some water race games to win stuffed animals for the baby (and one for
Kim who beat the snot out of me with her big ring when she lost by an inch -
sheesh!)
After
five years of engineering school following an excessively geeky high school
career, I had a first time experience: two different female attendants tried to
“sweet talk” me into trying to violate the laws of physics and probability to
win some crap.
However
one was just under fifteen years old, and the other was just under the mass of
Jupiter’s fifth moon (and missing many teeth as an added bonus) allowing me to continue
on my merry way.
For
a while we were staying dry at the booth with the best odds on the strip. Only four two-tone numbers, a one in eight
shot of winning! The two poor souls in
the booth would call people over and excitedly shout:
“Just
pick a number and color, if it comes up you win.”
“What’s
the prize?” the interested, almost customer would ask.
“A
live lizard” they would cheerily reply.
Then
the person would go, “ugh” and leave.
It
looked like they hadn’t spun the wheel in days.
With
those crowds all there really was to do was eat, and my, were there large
portions.
Nick
had a bloomin’ onion the size of a large sunflower.
I
got a cinnamon coated pretzel that could have given the entire city of Buenos
Aries a sugar rush for the month of September.
And
Kim got a squeeze bottle of lemonade made with several bushels of lemons and
enough water to irrigate the entire Tigris Euphrates river valley.
On
our way out we saw two odd fellows.
Well,
to be honest, we saw scores of odd fellows, odd ladies, odd children, and odd
animals.
However,
we saw two specific odd fellows that worked there.
One
was an Elvis impersonator, who had the voice down acceptably but looked like
the picture on the cover of the “Weekly World News: Elvis is Alive” issue. (Lord,
I miss that paper.)
The
other one was a guy who looked on the high side of a century and a half, and
wore a rainbow wig that was several decades older than he was. He sold bird whistles and rubber bugs and
snakes. As he appeared identical to the
way we remembered him as kids (with added wear and tear on the wig, of course) years before, I could only assume that he was
a very low powered form of the undead, who slowly sucked away people's souls by
selling their children loud and aggravating toys.
Was
the Fair the same thrill and fun packed day of excitement I remembered from my
childhood years?
Not even close.
Did
I continue to return and eventually transition to bringing my own family?
Naturally,
how could I abandon such a great source of material?
Click Here to learn about those childhood thrill and fun packed days of excitement.
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