Scenes from a Fair

Here are some of my photos from this year's Bloomsburg Fair:
The prize selection at this game stand looked like a slaughterhouse for Elmos.

The old Twelve-in-One. (I've always heard these things referred to as Ten-in-Ones, but this one offered 12 different exhibitions for the low, low price of $2. My friends didn't want to go in, even after I offered to pay the admission for all of them.) The barker outside talker, Ward Hall (corrected 11/8/2010, thanks to the Swami Yomahmi teaching me the error of my ways atthe 2010 Sideshow Gathering) is standing next to someone - I think he called him Poomba - who, he maintains, is the last of the actual Munchkins still alive from The Wizard of Oz. He did a good job - we stood there for about 10 minutes as he delivered his spiel, always with the sense that something was about to happen, but it never did. Finally we decided to move on. Next year for sure.

(Update, 3/29/14: That was Norbert (aka "Pete") "Poobah" Terhune, who passed away in July of 2012. Tributes to him on John Robinson's Sideshow World can be found here and here.)

In previous years I have paid the admission to see standalone exhibits. Once it was Spidora, half-girl, half spider. (Her current incarnation is shown in the second image from the right on the sideshow tent.) Spidora was simply a girl with her head sticking up through some black shag carpet. I looked in and said "Oh, come on, you're not even trying." Last year I went to see the World's Smallest Horse - basically a fairly large Shetland Pony. The pony ignored the onlookers who had paid 50 cents to see it, but it had a friend in its pen - a goat that eagerly looked up to see if anyone had brought anything for it to eat.

I don't think I've ever seen a jug band before. This duo is called the Sadie Green Sales Jugband. They were pretty good, although we only heard them play one song before they cleared the stage to make way for the dog show.

Ducklings! No Indian Runners this year, but lots of ducklings. I like ducks.

And finally, where else but a Fair can you get a Deep Fried Twinkie, Deep Fried Oreos, or a Deep Fried Pickle?

There were a few that got away. I should have taken a picture of the girl who was running the goldfish ping-pong ball toss stand, especially when she was picking up the ping-pong balls. I should have taken pictures of the dog show; three of the dogs are semi-famous, appearing in Purina and Ford commercials and an upcoming "Matlock" TV-movie. (This movie will feature Don Knotts' last acting role, most likely, as he suffered a major stroke a few weeks ago and is not expected to recover. I kept confusing him with Don Adams, but then convinced myself that Don Adams must already be dead. I was wrong, briefly.) And I should have gotten a picture of the boxes of paintball guns and pellets next to the boxes of red and blue bandannas, apparently the fixins for a "Crips vs. Bloods Paintball Adventure Weekend".

Oh, well. Maybe next time.