This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

When I was in elementary school, every year at the end of the term, they held a carnival. Not a big deal. A couple of ladies from the PTA coordinated it. Bake sale in the gym, a tilt-a-whirl, carnival games on the playground, the whole nine yards. My mind wandered back to those soft, halcyon days of elementary school when I saw “America’s State Fair 250.” Or “The Soviet Century of Progress.” Lug nut production achieves new record levels!

Come! See our 1/3 sized plywood scale model of the King’s latest monument to himself. Hitler wanted one just like it! (Just saying) Chances are that this one will never get built either. But hey kids, doesn’t that sound like big fun? Tour our food court and try to imagine feeding a family of four with twenty-dollar cheeseburgers. Do you want fries with that? “Oh, God, no!” Drinks? “No thanks, we’ll just drink from the Reflecting Pool.”

Daddy? Where’s the midway? You said that this was a fair and it would be lots of fun! No moon bounce, no slides, no arcade, no bumper cars and not even a merry-go-round! “Don’t you want to ride the Ferris wheel?” Not again! Where are all the livestock exhibitions? Where are the pigs and cows, and the pie judging and 4H projects? It’s like whoever was in charge of this fair had never been to a State Fair before.  

Minnesota has a butter sculpture, and Texas has Big Tex and longhorn cows. At the South Alabama State Fair we had “Bozo, the Smart Ass!” A clown in a dunking booth (3 balls for five dollars) Bozo would make Don Rickles sound like Mr. Rogers. Bozo would get after those rednecks and get them wound up and jumping for their wallets. “Ain’t that nice! He brought his mama to the fair!” That’s not my mama, that’s my wife! “Oh, my bad, sorry for you both! Come on Daddy! Show em, how you used to miss when you was just a boy!” It was hysterical, provided that you didn’t stand too close. And then, there was the greased pig competition for eight-year-olds. You know, fun, personality.

Even without the rain and the political cancellations America’s State Fair 250 had dullsville written all over it. The talent lineup looked like that K-Tell CD from 1992 that you bought in the middle of the night from a truck stop near Ellijay. Hey, we could mosey over and look at the new American cars? What? None? None. Not one? What kind of State Fair doesn’t have an American car show?  And like the Soviet Century of Progress. Come Comrade! Look upon these most excellent examples of technological progress and mayhem! See! The vehicles you will never be able to afford on a workingman’s salary! Hell! Just go check out our cheeseburgers!

No new cars, no old cars, no animals, no midway, no FFA or Civitan’s or 4H club? No lady selling homemade fudge. Gee, it’s just like a real State Fair, as imagined by a blind person who had never been to a State Fair before. What are people supposed to do to entertain themselves while at America’s State Fair 250? State information booths! Oh, wow! Hold me back! I’m having too much fun! What do you want to do next? Do you want to know what went wrong with the Reflecting Pool? Look at America’s State Fair 250. They could have called it America’s Funfair 250! But that would be lying.

I always enjoy browsing the AG equipment exhibits while at the State Fair. Nope. None of those either? You wanna ride the Ferris wheel again? I can honestly say America’s State Fair 250 is worth the price of admission, and you’ll get your money’s worth, and your shoes muddy. See! The world’s largest plywood temporary monument to stupidity. Coming soon! (Maybe) The world’s largest concrete monument to stupidity.

Honestly, it’s like a state fair designed by someone who has never been to a State Fair before. They only know what they saw in the movies or on TV. They’ve never really walked and smelled or stepped on the utility cords of a real midway. With generators running in your ears and colored lights flashing combined with music, and the smell of chili dogs or nachos, that’s America’s State Fair. Italian Bobs with the music blasting. Kids with balloons and young couples dating.

It reminded me of the Mary Pickford film, “The Poor Little Rich Girl” or, in our case, “Rich Boy.” Poor little Mary lived in a beautiful mansion and she watched the neighborhood children play in the street every day from her second-floor mansion window. But Mary wasn’t allowed to play in the street with the dirty street urchins. But one day, Mary snuck out. But when Mary tried to play with them, she didn’t know any of their street urchin games, and she didn’t fit in. Poor Mary. Does this somehow take on a familiar ring? Someone we all know? Someone with a sheltered childhood who wouldn’t know a corndog from a cocker spaniel. A funnel cake from a Ford.

Gee, what is it? Something seems to be missing here? It’s something! But what? Oh, wait! I get it now. It’s the activities of everyday, hardworking, tax-paying American citizens that are missing. Their best cattle from Texas are missing, and their biggest hogs, the things farmers had worked all year on. The best horses from Kentucky and the best produce from Illinois. Gimme a 500 lb. pumpkin from Minnesota over a Confederate flag any day of the week. The 4H projects the kids made with the blue ribbons hanging on them. The judging and the awards! All the things which celebrate American skills or American agricultural achievement. No awards, no blue ribbons, we don’t give a shit about what you dullards do! But, look at this! A full 1/3 scale plywood replica of a someday concrete edifice to be erected to our great ruler. Are you having fun yet? Do you wanna ride the Ferris wheel again? The power is back on!

Hey you kids! Don’t play in those rain puddles! Oh, wait, go ahead. They might as well have some fun while we’re here.  A State Fair 250 designed for an audience of one. Come! Step into the crazy machine! See! What a State Fair would look like if Donald Trump planned it! Come for the plywood monuments and play in the rain puddles! Fun for the whole family! Daddy! This sucks! “Shut up and drink your ice cream!”

“I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.” ― John Steinbeck,