Today At The Festival ...

I truly hail from Small Town, U.S.A. And like the swallows to San Juan Capistrano ... or the scary buzzards to Hinckley, Ohio ... each year I return with hundreds of other "expatriots" to our four-day home town rural festival. In a nutshell, the event is like a county fair but with twice the charm and half the sophistication. You draw your own picture!

Every small town has one, but in Ohio they seem to take on themes that focus around farming and crops ... corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, gourds, zucchini, and watermelon just to name a few. The festival has some good points. It's a boon to the local economy and keeps the teenagers out of trouble for four whole days. It also gives the entire population the opportunity to see old friends they haven't "visited with" for years ... even decades. And because the fair is small, you get to see those same "old friends" again and again and again!

And the food ... everything "on a stick" you can imagine. Main Street smells like "elephant ears" and side streets present fairgoers with the conflicting aromas of rich gyros and spicy Italian sausage sandwichs. The sizzle of the woks at the Asian food stand are both frightening and hunger-inducing. Our festival also sponsors a chili cook-off and pie-eating contest to bring out the competitive eaters and their cheering supporters. And there are crazy recipe contests where people create things like "tomato brownies" and "Boston zucchini cream pie." Some of it looks delicious!

But my hometown's street fair has some definite low points. Traffic and parking in a small town "stuffed" with visitors is a nightmare. And the midways ... or Main St. and a few side lanes ... are always delightfully filled with dust and debris, sluggish run-off from the concession stands, and strange, unidentifiable odors. And the noise ... the surrounding buildings trap all the ambient sound from talking and yelling and compressors and hydraulics and everything else that goes into running a bustling festival. Imagine the loudest concert you've ever attended ... then double that!

Then there's the entertainment. Annual events include a small-scale tractor pull (a watered-down version of the county fair competition), a baby-crawling contest (they look like little mobile pork roasts with faces battling for a silly plastic trophy), "bathtub races" (watercraft made of the oddest things assembled at a nearby lake with "boaters" acting crazy to win an overnight hotel stay in downtown Columbus), and a tobacco-spitting contest (even more disgusting than you can imagine). Musical entertainment spans both Friday and Saturday evenings. Friday night is always a local band and they're usually pretty good, but they are not allowed to perform until a sufficient number of people have "filtered in" from the area football games. So they get like a whole hour to rock! Then Saturday night is another exercise in sadness as a boring cover band or an actual "real" band with one aging original member still plugging along takes the stage. Time isn't an issue for this concert, although everyone in the audience keeps checking their watches and cell phones hoping that it will soon be over!

Then there's my new category ... "positive" things about the street fair that aren't positive anymore. I've been out of high school for more than a decade and I kept in contact with those individuals who meant something to me. So seeing all those slightly-heavier jocks and less-than-stunning former cheerleaders isn't fun anymore ... if it ever was in the first place. And it's incredibly awkward ... trying to conduct a conversation with someone you barely remember with lame comments like "so how's like without Student Council been treating you?" is physically painful.

Another thing I used to love was the lip sync competition held every Thursday night of the fair in the parking lot behind the local credit union. There were always serious performers and other groups just up on stage to clown around and get the crowd laughing. I always looked forward to the event. This year, I had a great spot ... standing almost up front with a clear view of the stage. Younger performers always go first, so it was no surprise when this cute little girl walked on stage in a tuxedo-esque leotard and top hat. What was surprising was that the costume had a plunging neckline that showed the girl's navel and she was wearing enough make-up to outfit a tiny car full of circus clowns. Then the music started and it just went from bad to disgusting. This nine-year-old girl started "syncing" to a Britney Spears song and playing to the crowd in a very adult way. She had moves that would make a pole dancer blush. Most of the people in the audience were shocked like me ... either staring with gaping mouths or shaking their heads while lowering their eyes away from the live "kiddie porn" revue. One lady a few places over from me ... probably in her 40s ... muttered quite loudly "Where are that girl's parents? ... I need to hit somebody!!" People around her silently nodded their consent

As the little girl continued to gyrate and pelvic-thrust her way across the small stage, I felt an odd tingling in my body. I now know that the sensation was the last "embers" of the little boy inside me who used to run straight from school up to the fair to play games, ride rides that threatened to overwhelm his youthful equilibrium, and consume his body weight in cotton candy, evaporating. Disintegrating. Dying of a broken heart.

POINT OF RANT: I think this "swallow" will be looking for new skies.

Today At The Fair ...

Last night was the first night of our county fair. I've been doing extra sit-ups and leg work to build up my stamina for the event. Fairs mean lots of walking, moving like a ninja to avoid the elderly on electric carts and all the animal droppings placed like land mines in the parking areas. Fair also means gravity-defying rides that look so repaired and piecemealed that there should be an insurance agent sitting beside the ticket booth to offer you additional coverage as you buy your chit for the "Zipper" or the "Tornado." The arrival of the county fair also represents a week of almost anything you can imagine deep-fried or skewered on a stick. Pickles ... cheese ... ice cream ... bananas ... oreos ... onion rings on a scale with the planet Saturn. Literally Heaven, well, on a stick!

But all this pales in comparison to the fascination my mind receives from a full week of watching the continual parade of incest and inbreeding and youthful disobedience and revolting displays of PDA that is County Fair Week!!

I'm out and about in my community fairly frequently, but why is it that fair week seems to unearth people of dubious genetics and, undoubtedly, extra toes. Honestly, I'm a mellow guy who rolls with most punches, but when I go to the fair I run into more unwashed, slack-jawed, loud and aggressive individuals then I normally would in a five-year period. It's more than just the outrageous piercings and the ludicrous amounts of tattoos ... both of which I think are cool in moderation ... but it's the confrontational attitudes and the cutting in lines and the being downright disrespectful to other fair-goers that renew my strong beliefs in birth control and abortion. I actually watched a pack of "motorcycle" chicks call out a family with two small children ... one in a stroller ... because they didn't feel they needed to wait their turn for fresh-squeezed lemonade! Do these cantankerous coots come in on buses? Is Jerry Springer taping shows again nearby? Does the fair board offer a discount for the downtrodden that I've never heard about?

And I mentioned PDAs ... public displays of affection. The retort "Get A Room!" was undoubtedly created at a county fair when someone with above-average morals asked a pair of recent high school graduates to quit having face sex on the midway. Or maybe it was when a feisty older lady, seeing one of the carny couples "rounding third and heading for home" between the livestock buildings, had just had enough.

I'm not a prude ... I have a serious porn collection, after all ... but I really don't want to see Olympics-level tonsil hockey between people I assume are brother and sister, nor do I get a thrill out of witnessing a middle-aged attraction worker promise a high school girl "the big pink pony" ... God, I hope he meant the stuffed animal ... if he can peek at her perky, underage breasts. Not now ... not ever!!

When I was a teenager, I loved the fair ... started mowing lawns as soon as spring hit so I'd have plenty of money to blow on rides and treats and games of chance. I also begged all my "rural" friends to let me stay a night in the animal barns with them because I heard they stayed up all night talking and telling scary stories. Now, I look at the teenaged fair goers and wonder what kind of alcohol I smell on them as they walk by. At yesterday's opening night, I watched two wasted girls claw at each other because one said something "bitchy" on Facebook. About 20 minutes later, I saw a mob of about 20 laughing young people encircled around a skinny boy of maybe 15 as he projectile vomited his alcohol-filled guts out. Of course, they all had their cell phones out taking pics and vid footage. "I'm sending this to everyone," one gawking girl proclaimed. Another teen said he was gonna try and be the first to get it posted on YouTube. At that moment, I felt so good about not having any children of my own.

POINT OF RANT: Maybe I should avoid "Tractor Pull Night" ... the crowds at the demolition derby might be more my cup of tea!!

Today At The Chinese Restaurant ...

I didn't feel like going to the grocery today. And I didn't want to even mess with dirtying dishes or heating up the oven. So I went and got take-out and The Purple Phoenix, and what did I get for my lazy ways and lack of energy ... DUCK SAUCE!

To properly eat Chinese food, you must first learn the "Ways of the Sauce," a powerful form of urban magic. Friends and family will try to lure you to this restaurant or that restaurant, and co-workers may attempt to order lunch with you during a moment of mental weakness or internal strife. But the Ways of the Sauce will never steer you wrong.

There are three basic truths at the beginning of the Way: 1) Most Chinese food is quite tasty. 2) Egg rolls are crunchy creations sent directly by the gods. 3) Duck sauce is utterly revolting.

Duck sauce ... sickly yellow-orange and translucent ... should not be confused with the robust, think energetic red-orange sweet and sour sauce, or 3S. 3S stresses sweet, while duck sauce leans toward the sour. Both condiments are staples in most Asian-themed eateries. Duck sauce is the more traditional sauce, using ginger, vinegar, and in some regions cooked apples to thin its consistency into a nice dipping sauce. 3S, however, is both a dipping and cooking sauce, and is often combined with onions, green peppers, and pineapple for texture.

I get angry because some places only put out duck sauce, you have to ask for 3S ... sometimes even pay for a small container of it even when you're dining in. Then there's plum sauce ... an even more distant 3S relative made with more vinegar, select chilis, and cooked plums or apricots for sweetness. It's usually light brown in color, kind of like a packet of silt collected from a dirty aquarium.

Now I don't mind hoisin sauce, a variety of dipping sauce more connected to Cantonese- or Mandorin-style fare. Hoisin is made from rice, wheat, sweet potatoes, vinegar, and other spices. The concoction looks dark and rich, and has an earthier flavor than any of the other sauces.

Although the Ways of the Sauce do not specifically prepare diners for every eventuality, they do delve into two other condiments: chinese mustard and wasabi. Chinese mustard is made from mustard plants that originated in India. Traditionally, the mustard is comprised of dried mustard greens, rice wine, sugar, vegetable oil, and other spices. Wasabi, often referred to as Japanese horseradish, is a root that is often incorporated into a mustard-style sauce. It is typically bolder than Chinese mustard and is quickly becoming more commonplace in Chinese and Vietnamese kitchens. Being mustards, both of these spreads stimulate the nasal passages and add a flavorful heat to food, not the burning warmth associated with peppers.

The children in my Welsh/German family were schooled in the Ways of the Sauce ... and more ... by my father at an early age. He worked second shift as a carpenter in a huge manufacturing facility. He got off work at around 11:15 PM and would often stop by a Chinese restaurant that stayed open until midnight and bring home take-out for the whole family. I can remember many nights, especially in the summer, when we would either stay up or be woken up for a late night feast of shrimp lo mein and moo goo gai pan. My mother loved it because she only had to make light snacks for supper on the nights it was planned, and leftovers made great next-day lunches. Us kids loved it even more because we got to stay up like adults and eat food from cool cartons. We learned to use chopsticks and about our place on the Chinese zodiac. And we got "schooled" on my Dad's obsession ... even greater than my preoccupation with sauce ... with the war that time forgot ... egg rolls vs. spring rolls. You'll have to look it up to see who wins!!

POINT OF RANT: One day, egg rolls and sweet and sour sauce will take over the world.