The Green County Fair kicks off today and, in the midst of my last summer in Wisconsin for an indefinite amount of time, it dawned on me that this year's fair may be my last.
With exception to a couple years during college and a few others, I've played witness to some 18 Green County summers. In nearly all, I visited the Green County Fair. As I grew up and changed so too did my reasons for visiting the annual summer event.
Having moved to Monroe in 1995, as a fourth-grader, my earliest memories of the Green County Fair were milling about the exhibition halls with my mother and my neighbor, Evelyn Tschanz, who was heavily involved in the fair.
The exhibition halls reminded me of the school science fair, except with more produce and less volcanoes. Just like I would in malls and other public places, I wandered around with my hands in my pockets and checked things out. It was neat to see the works of my classmates outside of school, as well as the craft of many people I didn't know at all. After a couple years of just looking at things, I eventually submitted two entries: a wooden clock and photography.
This was the extent of my participation in the fair, and it was a much different involvement than the other Pinks. My cousins were farmers, so they were always involved with the living, breathing side of the fair: cows, pigs, rabbits, etc.
I didn't venture over to the barns too often, but when I did it was usually to quickly say "hello" to relatives. You see, I grew up on military bases prior to coming to Monroe, and while I have since embraced my rural environment, it took me a while to get used to animals as big as my bunkbed and proportional amounts of manure. As a "city boy", the inanimate objects were my specialty: wooden clocks, corn, jars of peaches. That kind of thing.
Anyway, I won a ribbon for the photography and squat for my clock, though it did prove a reliable bedroom timepiece for many years. I have no idea where my winning pictures are, but I still have my ribbon.
When not in the exhibition halls, I would wander about the midway with friends, chasing after girls, eating fair food and checking out what vendors had for sale.
A stand over by the bathrooms had Harley Davidson memorabilia and Zippos (awesome), and another had a wide variety of T-shirts. There was the guy who made wooden toys and other gadgets, and for a while there was "the sunglasses guy."
Every year for about five years, my friend Shane and I would walk over to the table ran by "the sunglasses guy" - a well-tanned man with silvery hair - and buy one pair of shades. Even if our previous year's pair had long been broken, we would wait until the fair to meet up and buy a new set. Sunglasses were important, because they shaded your eyes from the sun. More importantly, having selected just the right pair a kid could increase his coolness by upwards of 10 percent. I had a big head and a little nose (still do), so selecting a pair was a delicate process. I always found the perfect pair, though.
My new sunglasses were especially important when I sold concessions at the grandstand with the Knights of Columbus. My grandfather was a member then, and I believe it was he who hooked me up with the gig.
Until I got a full-time summer job, I was usually in the grandstands every summer, putting miles on my legs, walking up and down the aisles, doing my best not to obstruct views of the entertainment, sweating my butt off and selling popcorn, cotton candy and soda.
I envied the kids who got to team up with an adult and sell beer, because that was where the real money was. There was some money in soda but little in popcorn and cotton candy. Regardless of each kid's haul, we got to have as much soda and popcorn as we needed as fuel, which was a gut-rusting delight. You also got to see the shows for free: the rodeo, the tractor pull, the concerts and the demo derby. The demo derby brought the biggest haul, and it was the one where I probably wasted the most time watching instead of selling.
What money I did make each night I would take with me and meet up with friends on the midway, blowing my hard-earned cash on games I rarely won for prizes I never wanted and food I probably should've never ate. And it was all worth every penny.
The worst money I ever spent at the fair came in the form of a ticket to ride The Zipper. I rarely rode carnival rides, because I was aware that their sole intent was to make the rider dizzy. I did not crave dizziness.
However, one year, fueled by one part daring and two parts peer pressure, I boarded The Zipper with a stomach full of funnel cake. In case you don't know, The Zipper is a three-story-tall torture device, comprised of enclosed cages and seemingly endless planes of rotation. The main body of the ride rotates on its own, and the individual cages rotate at the will of the occupants. I was content on making minimal rotations; my friend and copilot, Dan, had other ideas.
I made it about half-way through the ride before I tasted acidic funnel cake, and Dan stopped tumbling the cage shortly thereafter. When the ride was over and we were brought closer to Earth, I exited as fast as I could, making eye contact with as few people as possible because, by then, people had figured out what happened. I disappeared behind the ride and leapt the wood railing east of the grandstands. Laying in the cool grass, I took in copious amounts of fresh air, distant country music and Dan's apologies.
My experiences at the fair have grown less exciting since those days, and my inspirations for going have changed. If I can manage it around my work schedule, I'll go for my obligatory cheese curds or to say "hello" to people I know. I may catch the demo derby, and I'll almost always wander around the exhibition halls like I did as a curious kid.
Coming from where I came from before moving to Monroe, the Green County Fair was and has always been a learning experience for me. Apart from the laws of nature, including The Zipper and its effect on the equilibrium, the fair immersed me in the culture of Green County: the area I will forever call "home." Most of what the cultural side of the fair had to offer was quickly embraced and some things took time to get used to, but that's the beauty of the fair: a community's essence on display for all to see and experience.
And it's that experience that I will take with me when I leave Wisconsin for New York City next month. And while I'll be a man living in a big city, I will not forget my hometown and all that it represents in me. In large part, I have the Green County Fair to thank for that.
- Jeremy Pink is
Night Editor at The Monroe Times. He can be reached at jpink@themonroetimes.com.
With exception to a couple years during college and a few others, I've played witness to some 18 Green County summers. In nearly all, I visited the Green County Fair. As I grew up and changed so too did my reasons for visiting the annual summer event.
Having moved to Monroe in 1995, as a fourth-grader, my earliest memories of the Green County Fair were milling about the exhibition halls with my mother and my neighbor, Evelyn Tschanz, who was heavily involved in the fair.
The exhibition halls reminded me of the school science fair, except with more produce and less volcanoes. Just like I would in malls and other public places, I wandered around with my hands in my pockets and checked things out. It was neat to see the works of my classmates outside of school, as well as the craft of many people I didn't know at all. After a couple years of just looking at things, I eventually submitted two entries: a wooden clock and photography.
This was the extent of my participation in the fair, and it was a much different involvement than the other Pinks. My cousins were farmers, so they were always involved with the living, breathing side of the fair: cows, pigs, rabbits, etc.
I didn't venture over to the barns too often, but when I did it was usually to quickly say "hello" to relatives. You see, I grew up on military bases prior to coming to Monroe, and while I have since embraced my rural environment, it took me a while to get used to animals as big as my bunkbed and proportional amounts of manure. As a "city boy", the inanimate objects were my specialty: wooden clocks, corn, jars of peaches. That kind of thing.
Anyway, I won a ribbon for the photography and squat for my clock, though it did prove a reliable bedroom timepiece for many years. I have no idea where my winning pictures are, but I still have my ribbon.
When not in the exhibition halls, I would wander about the midway with friends, chasing after girls, eating fair food and checking out what vendors had for sale.
A stand over by the bathrooms had Harley Davidson memorabilia and Zippos (awesome), and another had a wide variety of T-shirts. There was the guy who made wooden toys and other gadgets, and for a while there was "the sunglasses guy."
Every year for about five years, my friend Shane and I would walk over to the table ran by "the sunglasses guy" - a well-tanned man with silvery hair - and buy one pair of shades. Even if our previous year's pair had long been broken, we would wait until the fair to meet up and buy a new set. Sunglasses were important, because they shaded your eyes from the sun. More importantly, having selected just the right pair a kid could increase his coolness by upwards of 10 percent. I had a big head and a little nose (still do), so selecting a pair was a delicate process. I always found the perfect pair, though.
My new sunglasses were especially important when I sold concessions at the grandstand with the Knights of Columbus. My grandfather was a member then, and I believe it was he who hooked me up with the gig.
Until I got a full-time summer job, I was usually in the grandstands every summer, putting miles on my legs, walking up and down the aisles, doing my best not to obstruct views of the entertainment, sweating my butt off and selling popcorn, cotton candy and soda.
I envied the kids who got to team up with an adult and sell beer, because that was where the real money was. There was some money in soda but little in popcorn and cotton candy. Regardless of each kid's haul, we got to have as much soda and popcorn as we needed as fuel, which was a gut-rusting delight. You also got to see the shows for free: the rodeo, the tractor pull, the concerts and the demo derby. The demo derby brought the biggest haul, and it was the one where I probably wasted the most time watching instead of selling.
What money I did make each night I would take with me and meet up with friends on the midway, blowing my hard-earned cash on games I rarely won for prizes I never wanted and food I probably should've never ate. And it was all worth every penny.
The worst money I ever spent at the fair came in the form of a ticket to ride The Zipper. I rarely rode carnival rides, because I was aware that their sole intent was to make the rider dizzy. I did not crave dizziness.
However, one year, fueled by one part daring and two parts peer pressure, I boarded The Zipper with a stomach full of funnel cake. In case you don't know, The Zipper is a three-story-tall torture device, comprised of enclosed cages and seemingly endless planes of rotation. The main body of the ride rotates on its own, and the individual cages rotate at the will of the occupants. I was content on making minimal rotations; my friend and copilot, Dan, had other ideas.
I made it about half-way through the ride before I tasted acidic funnel cake, and Dan stopped tumbling the cage shortly thereafter. When the ride was over and we were brought closer to Earth, I exited as fast as I could, making eye contact with as few people as possible because, by then, people had figured out what happened. I disappeared behind the ride and leapt the wood railing east of the grandstands. Laying in the cool grass, I took in copious amounts of fresh air, distant country music and Dan's apologies.
My experiences at the fair have grown less exciting since those days, and my inspirations for going have changed. If I can manage it around my work schedule, I'll go for my obligatory cheese curds or to say "hello" to people I know. I may catch the demo derby, and I'll almost always wander around the exhibition halls like I did as a curious kid.
Coming from where I came from before moving to Monroe, the Green County Fair was and has always been a learning experience for me. Apart from the laws of nature, including The Zipper and its effect on the equilibrium, the fair immersed me in the culture of Green County: the area I will forever call "home." Most of what the cultural side of the fair had to offer was quickly embraced and some things took time to get used to, but that's the beauty of the fair: a community's essence on display for all to see and experience.
And it's that experience that I will take with me when I leave Wisconsin for New York City next month. And while I'll be a man living in a big city, I will not forget my hometown and all that it represents in me. In large part, I have the Green County Fair to thank for that.
- Jeremy Pink is
Night Editor at The Monroe Times. He can be reached at jpink@themonroetimes.com.