The Fair

Welcome to the Washington Parish Fair -- the world's largest free fair!*

(* - we don't really know that for a fact, but we think it might be true, so we're going to keep saying it until somebody proves otherwise.)

People down here 'been talking 'bout this Fair for months.

You'd think it was their only source of annual entertainment.

Here are some of the things I'd been told about the Fair:

• People take out a loan to buy "Fair clothes" and have spending money. They spend all year paying it off so that they can do it all again next  year. But they got that wad of cash for the Fair.*

(* - the wad of cash is apparently very important. For the free fair.)

• People take their campers and camp out by the Fair so they don't have to travel back and forth and fight traffic. 

• People buy fancy new Fair clothes to wear to the Fair. 

• People will take teeny, tiny newborn babies to the Fair. 

• The traffic to the Fair will be so bad you might as well park in Bogalusa and walk the rest of the way. 

• The crowds at the Fair will be shoulder-to-shoulder. 

•  You can take pictures of people at the Fair because they don't know they're ugly. 

• Schools in Washington Parish close for the whole week of the Fair. 

• Businesses close on Thursday and Friday. 

• Everybody goes to the Fair. 

Our office was closed on Friday. For the Fair. All day Thursday people popped their head into my office: "You goin to tha Fair?" And honestly, I hadn't planned on it. I really don't like fighting crowds and traffic.

But Chip really wanted to go. He wanted to see a "real fair." I think he expected it to be very Charlotte's Web.

So we went to the Fair.

We went Friday morning, which I understand is the best time to go to avoid the crowds and traffic. And we didn't really have an issue with either one. Then again, we didn't really see anyone in their Fair clothes either. Unless you count these two:

Which I think you kind of have to. I guess most of the Fair clothes don't come out til the evening. We did see a ton of campers though.

The theme of this year's Fair is "Celebrating our Pioneer Spirit" and I guess there was some kind of yard display contest? Because we saw lots of yard displays. Like this creepy one in the yard of the Franklinton Junior High School. Native Americans in...Jason masks. Roasting the back half of a deer over a fire.

And just like a "real fair," there were pie-eating contests:

And a midway:

And fair food (most of which I could not eat):

And livestock:

(There was even a radiant and humble pig):

Although I didn't see any spiders.

There were also some unexpected pleasures. Like fresh cracklins. Which everyone kept telling me about.

But turned out to be absolutely disgusting.

And porch music, harmonizing to old hymns, complete with an old lady playing a washtub bass made for her by her harmonica-playing husband:

And fresh-ground corn meal:

And cane syrup:

And a mariachi band playing "Red Solo Cup":

And lovely old couples who have probably been coming to the Fair for 50 years: