For most kids, their summer consisted of taking the annual family vacation to somewhere awesome that was most likely out of state. My childhood was a little different. Our awesome family vacation was spent 50 miles away in big old Burley, Idaho living at the Cassia County fair. I'm serious. It was the best week of my life. All of the Almo families usually stayed in the same motel so it was basically one huge party! ( Not that we spent much time in our rooms.)
Weigh in always consisted of someones steer getting lose, or someone getting mowed over, but there was always plenty of help to capture the critters. You quickly became an expert at "mixing drinks" because your animal couldn't stomach the awful taste of city water. Therefore you tried everything in your power to come up with a concoction so your steer didn't look starved for the big show. I found that tang usually worked, but as the years went by some genius discovered leading your animal to water did the trick. WHO KNEW?!
By the time you got your steer washed, dried, fed, and groomed, you were so exhausted and hoped and prayed that the judge was fast so you didn't have to sit there while trying to lift your 1200 pound steers head up, because someone didn't tie him up as much as they should have throughout the year. I was always competitive, but you were always competing against your friends, and you just hoped you all did good and got to sell your animal by the time Saturday rolled around.
We always had "stall duty" which is just a glorified word for pooper scooper. But this is what the average kid doesn't understand. It was during the scooping of poop that all the fun was had. This right here is where the magic happened. Your parents were never around because it was during the middle of the day, when the heat of 1,000 suns wanted to melt your face off. (I'm pretty sure kids under the age of 18 are immune to it.) If you weren't old enough to drive, you'd find a friend who was and run to the DI to purchase the cheapest couch you could find. One year it was yellow. One was a bright orange. We had plenty of brown couches, but the color never mattered. Why? Because these couches always served their purpose of bringing good friends together to sit and tell stories, take long naps, hold your fair flings hand, or eat your millionth snow cone. The plus side was, we didn't have cell phones back in the day so your parents just trusted you were fine and were staying out of trouble. By not having phones, we actually had to communicate with other human beings. Weird, I know!
Water fights were always a must, along with wheelbarrow races and roping practice. Nights were usually spent trying to sneak into the rodeo. If you were lucky, you had connections and never had to worry about getting a seat. The Wild Bunch was where it was at. You'd get excited hearing Mr. Bells voice echo over the loudspeaker, and you knew the Cowboys Prayer by heart. The hardest part of all though always came on Saturday night when "Happy Trails" played its last tune. I may or may not have cried, but you always knew the fair was over. Summer vacation had come to an end, and you'd have to wait another year to get a maple bar, and funnel cake, and turkey leg, and maple bar.
Fair was about hard work, but getting to have a little fun too. I looked at fair as my reward for not killing my animal throughout the year, because lets face it....the Ward steers were usually a little psychotic, and I deserved a hell of a lot more than a week at the fair for taming those wild beasts!
The fair will always hold a special place in my heart, and I am eternally grateful for those friends who sat on the couch together and talked about anything and everything. We are the ones who know the true meaning of fair, and I thank my lucky stars I'll get to keep those memories forever. Happy Trails friends.
-Keely
If you guys have any old pictures lying around I'd love to see them!
