Skip to main content

Going to the Fair

Walking into the fairgrounds
There's nothing like a good old-fashioned county fair. If you want a classic, it has to be the Wyoming County Fair, commonly known as the "Pike Fair." Since the fair is held in Pike, NY it makes perfect sense. When we travel back East to NY in August, the fair is a must. As with many county fairs in the northeast, the Wyoming Co. Fair has been around a long time--since 1843. It moved around to different towns until it was permanently settled in the village of Pike some years later. That was because it had empty potato storage barns, which were perfect for housing the livestock and vendors for a week.* Historical note: Pike is no longer a village, but a hamlet. It became unincorporated in 2009.
The hogs
The fair hasn't changed since I was growing up in another hamlet--East Koy, just about 3-4 miles away. While other county fairs charge a stiff admission price, no admission fee has ever been charged as far as I know. The rides have changed a bit over the years, but the merry-go-round and Ferris wheel remain popular fixtures.
Eating BBQ
The BIG tractor
Fairs are really all about celebrating agriculture, and Pike Fair does that with aplomb. Whether it's a prize pumpkin, jam, chicken, hog, or cow you'll find it at the fair. There's nothing like walking the livestock barns--the smell of sawdust, hay, and manure filling the air. Cows are mooing, pigs squealing, and some horse is snorting its irritation with the whole deal. There are the 4-H competitions with dogs, horses, and livestock. The school exhibits--paper mache castles, waxed leaves, drawings in every media covering the display boards. 

 Then the big guns appear for the ever popular tractor pulls on Friday and Saturday nights. The roar of astoundingly huge tractors engines entertain the masses with their equally astounding power.

 Walking the fairway is a veritable feast for the senses. The ring of the bell when someone on the fairway scores in the ring toss. The music of the merry-go-round and the thrum of the crowd. The smell of fried dough, cotton candy, and burgers waft along with the crowds. You must check out all the vendors in the business buildings and see what free gizmo they're giving away. Be sure to stuff it in your bag, so you can toss it out at home. Why do we feel the need take free stuff we'll never use? 
The fair is where you meet up with people you haven't seen in years. In fact, most of our time was catching up with old friends in between eating chicken BBQ and walking the grounds. It's a one-stop visiting opportunity. The vendors are the same year after year, predictably stationed in the same space. You know where everything is and the familiarity is comfortable. 

 There's that home-like feel as you enter--the tractors and cars at the entrance, the VFW or Letchworth Band Boosters hotdog and burger stands, the merry-go-round that's been in the exact same spot for endless years. The one David and I rode as kids, as did our daughters, and our grandsons. Nice memories.
Washing "You Know What" off the shovel.
The Iconic Rhode Island Red






Cow Barn

 We stroll back to the car with our treat of powdered sugar coated fair waffles. Until the next time--good old Pike Fair.


Labels

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Castile Knapper

It's always fun to have family members who have a bit of notoriety because of interesting pursuits. My husband's cousin, Ken Wallace is one of those.  Ken is an artist who works in stone as a flintknapper. Flintknapping is the ancient art of shaping tools and weapons from pieces of stone. Knapping was part of the survival skill set of Native Americans. Arrowheads, knives, hatchets, and more were shaped from raw pieces of flint or chert.  Ken knapping at the Wallace Reunion Ken became interested in this process back in 1985. One of his favorite pastimes was searching fields for arrowheads, both of which are pretty plentiful in Western New York. Freshly plowed ground in rural areas often yields many different types of arrowheads since the Iroquois were the original residents of what are now corn fields and cow pastures. Fascinated with how the Iroquois made their weapons and tools, Ken started to try and recreate them. He says a lot of trial and error were involved in the...
1 comment
Read more

Victim of Circumstances?

 The article below has been getting a lot of hits lately, and I thought it may be time to repost it. A couple of weeks ago, I took the picture below. I thought it pretty much sums up our life journey. We never know what's around the corner for us.  Circumstances change in seconds some days. Whether the circumstances of life are good or bad, we're fond of blaming them for how we behave and think. Here are a few of the well-used excuses:  "I'm a victim of circumstances.""The situation is impossible." "The circumstances are beyond my control." "Under the circumstances"...fill in the blank. Funny how principles, self-control, and  positive thinking can go out the window when we're "under the circumstances."  And lest you think the author is above blaming circumstances, she is not. I've used most of the excuses above, whether spoken or unspoken.  An imprisoned and wrongly accused Jewish C...
1 comment
Read more

Smores Anyone?

We lived in the same house for 25 years just outside of our small hometown of Castile. It was a good little neighborhood and was mostly quiet except for the traffic on Route 39. When the signs of spring arrived, it was also time to pile up tree branches, and clean out the garage or the shed of burnable miscellany. Each year there seemed to be a contest between my husband and the next door neighbor to assemble a burn pile of enormous proportions.  Day after day I watched their piles grow until tepee-shaped woodpiles were just right to be torched. There was an art to the arrangement so that it would be totally consumed in a short amount of time. It was sort of like a bonfire on steroids. Now the neighbor enjoyed the element of surprise on the neighborhood and waited for quiet Saturday afternoons to begin his incendiary activity. KABOOM! You would have thought we were under attack by enemy forces. Then there was a rush of wind and the crackling of the k...
2 comments
Read more