I remember going to the Jackson County Fair in Brownstown as a kid in the back of my Grandparent’s blue station wagon. The little, hilly dips on US 250 would add even more butterflies to my already excited belly. Nanny & Pap-pa loved taking my brother and I to the fair (or at least I THINK they did). Back in the day, the Methodist church had one of the food booths there and Nanny always baked homemade pies to sell in the stand. Pap-pa was the chauffeur because Nanny didn’t drive and she made him take us. Probably. She went to the women’s pavilion alone. No way would a manly man like my Pap-pa be caught in one of those type places. He would sit in a lawn chair people-watching and spitting tobacco juice on crickets and stuff.
Even back in the day the carnies looked a bit rough, and I wasn’t allowed to go to the midway alone until I was at least 25 years-old. Ok, maybe I wasn’t 25, but I do remember the burlesque shows on the midway! Scantily clad women dripping with bright-blue make-up and coal-black eyeliner slinking around on a make-shift stage crafted from a tractor trailer, the men would line up for a long stretch to get in.
What really got MY attention on the midway; however, were the freak shows… you know… the 3 headed cow, the bearded women… educational ::cough:: exhibits like that. As a butcher’s daughter, later in life I saw one of those cows that wasn’t 100 years old in a jar of formaldehyde, and heck, there are bearded women everywhere! So when you get right down to it — the best thing ever was getting to pick up ducks. Why?
