Timberman
Posts: 845
Registered: 9/21/2004
Rank: Gold Critic
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 8/20/2007 11:50:06 PM
Having had my heart broken year after year by corporate amusement parks, and more recently even by the stalwarts and true believers who are cashing out or trimming up, I am starting to believe that the only place I can turn for authenticity and daring in the world of thrill rides and amusements is the local fair. Somehow, the rules that govern ordinary life -- a relentless focus on limiting liability, a preoccupation with hygiene and a segregation of the various strata of the food chain, a reluctance to mix with members of different ethnicities or socio-economic classes, the notion that food is a sit-down experience -- are suspended each summer at fairgrounds all across the nation. Nobody skips to the front of the line with a Q-bot at the fair. Nobody considers the advisability of boarding, or allowing their beloved, sheltered off-spring to board, hastily-assembled rides designed and built decades before the advent of federal safety standards or computer-aided design, rides still crusted with vomit dating from the Carter Administration and operated by personnel who not only have not been vetted by background checks or mandatory drug testing but whose indiscretions, if not their criminal records, are displayed in their lined, weather-beaten faces and the fading ink of tattoos etched into leathery skin by needles as filthy and well-worn as the interior vinyl and foam padding of the rides these carnies now operate. The fair, like the DMV, is the great equalizer of us all, a true vessel for America's melting pot.
Having grown up in rural America, where dedicated county fairgrounds are a given, I was somewhat surprised by the rather modest accommodations for the Arlington County Fair, which is held on the grounds of a local rec center. Thus, rather than the sprawling, post-apocalyptic encampments of Allegany County or even the Jersey Meadowlands, Arlington County's iteration offers up something bigger than the typical parking lot carnival but smaller than what I've come to consider a true "fair." Nevertheless, the gate price was right (free), as was the parking fee (also free, although requiring a willingness to cruise repeatedly through nearby residential neighborhoods, parallel park, and schlep aforementioned offspring and related paraphernalia several blocks to the promise land).
Surveying the ride offerings, I quickly determined that this would be a mixed bag. On the one hand, I hit pay dirt with the rare and terrible Larson High Roller, justly immortalized as a Top Ten White Trash Carnie Ride by that bon vivant of the form, our own Horizons12. On the other hand, the only coaster credit would be the pedestrian Go-Gator, a powered Wisdom kiddie ride with an uninspired ovoid layout and a maximum elevation change of some eight feet. Worst of all, my ability to obtain this marginal credit would depend on the whims of an often churlish and occasionally spiteful three-year-old, who is beginning to learn the awesome power that his dad's weakness for credit whoring bestows upon him in these situations. Wretch that I am, even I wouldn't board the Go-Gator at the fair without the company of my wife and progeny as a beard to hide my secret shame.
After a quick lap of the modest midway, we plunked down $20 for a book of 24 tickets. I made a bee-line for the High Roller, while T2 lay unconscious in his stroller, having collapsed during the walkabout from the car to the rec grounds. Momma Timbers, meanwhile, dutifully recorded my heroics on the cell phone camera (pics to follow, if I can stay in her good graces). Momma T is one of the exceedingly rare people who meditates on the physiological consequences and actuarial considerations of these mobile deathtraps and so would not be venturing aboard the potentially lethal rides herself this day.
I've mentioned before that I think "rerideability" is overrated and that I respect rides whose intensity make for brief though memorable hit-and-run encounters. Fair rides
Message updated 8/20/2007 11:57:30 PM by Timberman
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hrrytraver
Posts: 1270
Registered: 7/16/2005
Rank: Platinum Critic
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8/21/2007 8:58:48 AM
blast it to hell, FREE admission! that bums me out because the MD state fair, which goes up later this month in the northern b-more burbs has gotten unruly economically. it's a huge affair, actually quite top notch, but i can barely bring myself to go anymore. 24 bucks would get me maybe on three rides at the MdSF. the food is preposterous as well.
maybe i'll just suck it up this year and get a gaggle of big spender friends to go with me. the super stinky animal pavillions are some serious acres of prized sows and swines lazing around with their amazing, big thoughtful eyes digging into your own. i honestly would just go there to bond with the fat sows. the six months i spent in india turned me into a cow worshipper. fabulous creatures! and i love the sight of a big pink, 20-teated mama pig graciously letting her little corkscrew-tailed dectuplets suck away nearly as much as gazing at beatific cow eyes.
nice work so far, keep her coming t-man..........
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Message updated 8/21/2007 9:54:13 AM by hrrytraver
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