Hello Internet!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. You might have noticed the lack of things being posted and I want to address that with an update. As you may or may not know, after we celebrated the 100th published piece up on the website, my laptop decided to stop working. Since then I have had a close friend working on it and trying to get it back up and running. In between his busy schedule, my busy schedule, and the complications that have arose, the laptop is still not up in working order. Unfortunately it seems like things won’t be back to normal soon. At this point, my laptop has been out of comission for about a month and it is really dragging out this fight. I’m hoping to get it back up and running soon, but I can’t make any promises. My plan for now is to continue these Weekly Blogs leading up to my monthly update on September 1st like I have done for every other month. Then I will do a soft-reboot of the website starting on our normal schedule again with new Pokemon Chapters being published on Wednesdays and Writing Prompt pieces being written on Fridays. Of course the Weekly Blogs on Sundays will be our constant through that turmoil. I’m hoping that I will be able to fill the void with some creative writing pieces, but those will be shorter pieces that aren’t scheduled. I hate that this makes writing and creativity sound like boring business meetings or something, but I think a consistent schedule is good for me as the writer and you as the reader. Ok let’s move on from boring schedule stuff and onto some funs and games!
This week’s Weekly Blog is about The County Fair! Now if come from a more urban setting where fairs aren’t a big deal, you need to go out to the country and find yourself a county fair. Where I live, the county fair is a huge deal. We’re talking about businesses all over the county closing down for Fair week and almost everyone in the county planning their week around livestock shows, kids day at the fair, and when all their friends and family are going to the fair. It is a big deal. As a child, the county fair always represented the “last hurrah” of the summer where you got to walk around with your friends stuffing your face with kettle corn and cotton candy before you had to go back to school. That’s right. School doesn’t start until after the County Fair. That’s how big of a deal it is. It’s kind of incredible and crazy that the whole county kind of shuts down for one week while the fair is going on. Of course, tons of businesses come to the fair so people don’t really get the week off. There’s food vendors which represent local restaurants all over the county as well the roaming food vendors who haul their food trucks all over the country. There’s also tons of other groups at the fair including churches, landscaping companies, the local radio stations, people selling RV’s, and even companies selling gravestones. I know, it is so cheery to think about your morality before getting on the Ferris Wheel or before buying a funnel cake. I don’t know why they are there at the fair, but they are. Everyone is at the fair.
And we can’t forget about all the fun games and rides. They have all the classic games that are almost impossible to win. There’s always that 1% chance you’ll actually win and the people running the games make it look so easy. All you have to do is pop a balloon with a dart or throw a ball into a cup or score over 200 in Ski Ball. All super easy stuff, right? Well not really. Most of the games have tricks or schemes behind them that make them really hard to win. Those balloons are underinflated, the ball is really bouncy, or maybe the basketball rim is thicker than usual so it is hard to score a basket. You think you’re going to win, but the odds are stacked against you the entire time. Of course if you do win, are you going to win the giant stuffed bear or the Playstation 4? Of course not! You win this tiny bear or a necklace. If you want to win the big stuff you’ll have to win 5 more times and trade in all the small stuff. You just spent $20 trying to win the giant bear and all you’re left with is a small bear keychain and the knowledge that you’d probably have to spend $100 to get the giant bear only worth $10. Even though people know these games are stacked against, they play them anyway. I mean there’s a reason why these people come back year after year. They make money. People play and play these games over and over trying to win that giant bear only to go home with the small bear keychain and next year they come back with money in hand determined to win the giant bear this year. This year will be their year. Or maybe the next year. Or the next.
For me, The Fair was always a mix of fun and business if you want to call it that. I was in 4-H since I was really little. If you don’t know what 4-H is, it is a youth organization that focuses on agriculture and other hobbies like sewing, photography, woodworking, etc. Check out their about page here if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I was in 4-H ever since I was a young child and I showed both Sheep and Rabbits. Showing one type of animal is a lot of work and showing two almost quadruples that. You have shows for just the 4-H and FFA kids and then you have shows for “Open Class” which is people from all over the county of all ages and then you have skillathons where the 4-H and FFA kids are judged for their knowledge of the animals. It’s a lot. Luckily for me, all the animal barns are pretty close to one another, so I didn’t have to go very far, but it was still a lot of running alot. There were days where I had shows in the rabbit barns and weigh-in in the sheep barn and I had to run back and forth between the two. Of course these shows never start on time and usually lasted the good part of a day. The show might start at 9 AM, but it was possible that you didn’t actually show your animal until 1pm, 2pm, or even 3pm. You just have to sit in the barn all day as you waited for your turn to show. Those were long days. I also went through the whole experience of selling my animal in an auction. The rabbits I showed were breeding rabbits, so we didn’t sell those for meat, but the sheep I showed were market lambs. At the end of the fair, we’d sell them off and they would be taken away to be turned into lamb chops. I’ll admit that each year it was hard to see your animal go after you spent so much time with them. They were like a pet that you got to raise for the summer and then they were gone. Ok, you got me. I’m man enough to admit that there were some tear-filled nights, but for the most part I held it together.
Well I think I’m going to cut it off there. I have so many Fair stories that I could tell which involve riding rides, playing in the arcade, defacing a picnic table, eating kettle corn, etc. but I think I should just stop while I’m ahead. That was a top-view of my local County Fair. I definitely recommend you go find a fair nearby whether that be your State’s Fair or the local Fair and go check it out. At least go so you can chow down on all the deep-fried, fair food!
Thank you so much for reading through that Weekly Blog. I really appreciate all your support which comes in the form of likes, comments, or just views. If you want, check out our Facebook page here, our Twitter page here, and our newly created Sarahah page here. Any of those places are good to give feedback or you can just leave a comment below or email allen.the.writer@gmail.com.
Thank you again for all your support and I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Allen The Writer 