Barb and I are watching the movie from the 40’s called “State Fair”. It’s about a family that goes to the Iowa State Fair back in the days when fairs really meant something. It made me think of a story that I had forgotten until now.
Every summer, on the farm, one of the highlights of the summer was to go to the Calhoun County Fair. I think it was in August and we went every year. The Kader’s would take animals to be judged and we kids would get to go, too. I begged my mother until she gave me some money and then we could ride as many rides as we could and get cotton candy, etc.
My cousin’s Sharon and Dick and I would run around together all day and have a great time. The best part was that we weren’t working that day. It was like a vacation. One year, Sharon came running excitedly up to me and said she’d got to know the operator of the Merry-Go-Round and he would give us a free ride. We were to get on the ride, mount a horse and then when the ticket taker came along to pick up the ticket, we would just point to the operator and the ticket taker would go on and we’d get a free ride.
Well, it worked perfectly. The guy came along. I pointed to the operator and he nodded and went on his way. We rode the ride and got off. It was after the ride was over that Sharon told us that she had never talked to the operator at all. She had made the whole thing up. She thought it was a great trick to play on us and expected us to get kicked off the ride. It backfired and we got the ride anyway.
We laughed about that for days.
Dad