Go Poco Go!

There is something exciting about the fair.  I love the smells, the sounds, the laughter, the tired cranky kids.  I love the FairShitShop kiosks, the special villages, the critters.  Suddenly cows are interesting to me!  Sheep!  Goats!  Chickens, even!  I love to see what the kids were doing in their 4H groups, what the scouts were doing this year.  I want to know about dogs they trained, the cat houses they built, and the art they created.  And I love to stick my face through holes of character faces and become something else...like compost worms :)

The Oregon State Fair is a nice one.  Lots of commercial buildings and rides and cows.  It has great fair food--who doesn't like over-fried Twinkie-dipped Oreo-gooped food?  Curly fries, fresh-squeezed lemonade,
roasted corn.  And the only time I like those squares of ice cream dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts is at the fair.  

Mom told me she liked to go to the fair and just sit and watch people when I was young.  As a kid, I thought that was crazy.  Why would you go to just sit around?  Then I became a middle-aged adult and found I loved going to the fair on a week day and , after traipsing through the commercial buildings (I love the commercial buildings!), I would end up sitting in the fun zone just watching parents with their little ones on the rides.

My favorite fair in this area is the Clark County Fair in Washington.  It's a smaller fair but packed full of good times.  As you enter, there is the dog leaping and swimming show where you can cheer on Poco.  It is noted, "[the Clark County Fair is] So delightfully tacky that you just can’t stay away. Chock full of amusement park rides, farm animals galore, and the unhealthiest food on the planet, and yet always a TON of fun."  Plus you can become compost worms :)

This fair is the best because you can go through it all and still have energy for rides.  My grandboy always loved going to the fair with us, from the time he was just a lil thang to this year going on his own with friends.  Gawd I hate he wants to go to the fair without us!  But to be fair, if I had been in town and asked, he would have said yes PLUS gone with friends :) Gawd I hate I was out of town when the fair was going!

But...the overall best fair is the Los Angeles County Fair.  Hands down.  It's the biggest.  It's the happiest.  It's my fair.

When my sister and I were old enough to attend the fair without supervision, we were handed a five dollar bill as Mom dropped us off at the entrance and told when she would come pick us up.  Sister and I always had different desires with our $5.  I would always buy a heart shaped necklace with a ruby tacked on and my name etched across the heart ($1), have my handwriting analyzed (50 cents), buy a hot dog on a stick ($1) and a hand squeezed lemonade ($1).  My sister would buy something to eat and then rides some rides.  

And then we were out of money and had the rest of the day to do things.  One of the things we did was travel through the three commercial buildings and gather pamphlets.  We would get one of those great bags with handles and gather pamphlets as we walked through the aisles.  We made it a contest: she who gathered the most pamphlets was the winner!  No duplicates.  And it was always interesting to me that, while walking side-by-side, we would have a few pamphlets that were different from each other.  And sometimes as we walked, we would sign up for something with our mom's name and they would call her later when the fair was over.  What?  She didn't want Encyclopedia Britannica?  What?  She didn't want new siding?  New windows?  

I love the fair.  Any fair.  Any size.  I loved the tiny Josephine County fair that was two aisles of fair stuff.  I loved the fair in Splendora, Texas with its young cowboys and cowgirls, spinning rides, and Texas fair food.  I love the sounds.  The smells.   Roasted corn on the cob. 
 
Now fall is almost upon us.  Leaves are turning and rain is falling.  The pride and joys of what the community has reaped are over and done.  So until next year~~

And so it goes
peace~~~

Weird Portland Wednesday: Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign

posted on a fence across from Reed College

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

Every town has signs plastered on lamp poles and fences and sides of buildings. Show tonight!  Yard Sale!  Missing cat!  Looking for jobs?  Portland is no different; we've got em all.  But our little city also has it's own brand of signs.  

Did you lose a chicken (apparently it was loose ;))?  We found one!

Yes, we lost our chicken!  Her name is Kevin. 

Did you find her?

 Are you having strange dreams?  Hummm? 
I want to hear them...

And of course, before any protest march...
we have to be able to identify, right?

 Gotta love Portland...just keeping it weird

And so it goes
peace~~~

Throwback Thursday: Just-Us-Two-Girls Weekend

When I was eight years old, my father and friends decided to go boating and camping at Lake Isabella.  Mom decided to stay home and my nine-year-old sister was chosen to tag along with the campers.  I was upset that Patty was able to go on a special trip and I wasn’t.  Mom decided to make it a just-us-two-girls-weekend.  We went to the newest theme park, Pacific Ocean Park.  I was still pouting but glad to head to the ocean.  Wow!  P-O-P!

This interesting theme park was created to compete with Disneyland.  The best amusement park designers were called to action and on July, 1958 the 28-acre park, built on a pier between Santa Monica and Venice Beach, was opened.
It was spectacular.  In its brief heyday, it boasted the traditional arcades, Ferris wheels, and funhouses, plus a host of innovative simulations including the “underwater” Neptune’s Kingdom and the space-age Flight to Mars. 

Guests could float above the midway and over the ocean in bubbles on the Ocean Skyway or ride the Tiki-styled Mystery Island Banana Train (complete with an erupting volcano). The park also incorporated marine life displays and had a Sea Circus with a baby sea elephant that danced to rock ’n’ roll, a diving mule, and a lifeboat helmed by chimpanzees. And it had a ballroom that hosted both Lawrence Welk and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

After the fun at the park, Mom and I went to the beach to play.  I remember two specific things about that day.  First, I had to buy my sister a gift from the park.  I bought her a sea shell with smaller shells inside the larger shell.  And secondly, I remember playing in the ocean and having the riptide roll me out toward the sea.  Good thing I had those swimming lessons!

I visited the park once again in 1962 with my best friend Gaylea Holloway.  We were twelve years old and lovin the groovy park.  Unfortunately, the park, which once had more daily visitors than Disneyland at the time, started losing money due to need to upgrade infrastructure and remodeling, as well as renovating the city of Santa Monica.  It closed in 1967 and fell into disarray along the ocean.

Pacific Ocean Park was a great innovative theme park that set many different standards for parks in the future.  How cool to ride a roller coaster over the ocean?  How cool was it to watch a sea mammal show and then take a ride to Mars?  

I have always loved the ocean and didn't pout for long about Patty's trip to Lake Isabella.  I had the fun of a day on the pier at the Pacific Ocean Park before it all rotted away. 

And so it goes
peace~~~

Weird Portland Wednesday: A Simple Unicycler Roaming the Streets

Portland has many different types of transportation.  We are well-known for our train, the Max.  We are well-known for our bus system, Trimet.  We have streetcars and an aerial tram.  We have cars and bikes and all the usual suspects.  Many cities also have such transportation types, but we have something no everyone else probably has...we have a Unicycler.  Oh, no...not just ANY unicycler, but a Darth-Vader-playing-the-Star-Wars-theme-on-flaming-bagpipes  unicycler.  We have The Unipiper.

The Unipiper

Seriously, how many cities can claim such a treat?  And he does so much for us!  

He officiates weddings.

He shovels our snow.

He entertains us.

But mostly he helps keep Portland Weird.

And so it goes

peace~~~

A Plea Among the Riff-Raff

Yesterday my fella and I were heading up to celebrate our grandboy's 16th birthday.  Traffic through the tunnel that leads to the freeway entrance was stop-and-go, so we had plenty of time to read the spray-painted tunnel walls.  Not a pretty sight.  Now don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of beautiful graffiti tags out there.  But this specific tunnel doesn't sport such a visual treat.

So among the spray-painted riff-raff, we found a pearl.  A small beautifully calligraphic plea to Bring Back the Mullet.  We were able to sit there for a bit and mull over that plea.  Bring back the mullet.  Oh yeah sure...now there was a style that needs be returned *voice fading away*

The mullet.  Yes, the mullet.  Business in front and party in the back.  We think of this style as a 1980s icon, but the beloved style dates pretty far back.  Incidents of the hairstyle were documented more than 1,400 years ago, when Byzantine scholar Procopius wrote of a craze among young Roman men in the 6th Century BCE, who sought to emulate the look of Hun barbarians by growing their hair long all around the head except across the forehead, where they kept it cut short. (here I feel so scholarly when I do this)
 
President James Polk sported a mullet. And of course every great athlete and many entertainers in the 80s gave us this look--Paul McCartney, Billy Ray Cyrus, Andre Agassi, Larry Bird, David Bowie.  The list goes on.  So the mullet is deeply ensconced in history.  

Perhaps we should simply allow the hairstyle remain as a footnote in world history.  Iran agrees.  The Iranian government banned the mullet as an acceptable hairstyle for men, claiming it was part of a "Western cultural invasion.” Barbershops were raided and serial offenders were issued steep fines.  This might be one of the few policies that Iran has created that Americans could agree. 

Others would disagree and will march to the right to wear their hair in any style that floats their boat, flips their skirt, or bounces their ball.  All-in-all I can  appreciate the small voice heard with a sweet little plea posted right there among the tagged riff-raff. 

And so it goes
peace~~~