For as long as I can remember there has always been the Jaycee Fair. I remember being little and getting to go to the fair. When we are children things can seem so big, there were so many lights and what appeared to be hundreds of rides and games. We would go home with the fair fish in the bag. The fairgrounds seemed so huge- The dusty gravel crunching under our feet as we made our way in and out of the crowd, all the faces, the carnival workers it seemed as if it took the whole evening to navigate through the rides and food carts – the smell of hot sugar and grease filled the air-cotton candy, elephant ears, funnel cakes, fair fries, corn dogs. These smells even to this day bring me back to the warm spring nights. The lights of the carnival swirling around. Every now and then the smell of chlorine would float over from the pool and intermingle with the other sweet scents.
Ah late Spring, first the Memorial Day Parade, second the bittersweet ending of the school year, next the Jaycee Fair, really the beginning of summer which always seemed so long. It was about this time the lightning bugs would start appearing in the evening. This meant evening games of tag and catching the lightning bugs sticking them in jars, covering the jars with plastic and punching holes in the top so they could breathe. Every now and then curled up in bed looking at my jar of the little golden flashing lights beside me- I would think “they need to be free”, and so they would become free in my room. The glow of the little lights and the soft evening breeze coming in the windows would create such wonderful dreams.
I am past this phase of my life-now the fair seems so tiny compared to the big eyes of my youth. My girls are past this phase. Now our Grandson is entering this phase-eyes big with excitement, his little head all sweaty from the hot evenings and all the great questions he has. So the cycle starts all over again.
Ah late Spring, first the Memorial Day Parade, second the bittersweet ending of the school year, next the Jaycee Fair, really the beginning of summer which always seemed so long. It was about this time the lightning bugs would start appearing in the evening. This meant evening games of tag and catching the lightning bugs sticking them in jars, covering the jars with plastic and punching holes in the top so they could breathe. Every now and then curled up in bed looking at my jar of the little golden flashing lights beside me- I would think “they need to be free”, and so they would become free in my room. The glow of the little lights and the soft evening breeze coming in the windows would create such wonderful dreams.
I am past this phase of my life-now the fair seems so tiny compared to the big eyes of my youth. My girls are past this phase. Now our Grandson is entering this phase-eyes big with excitement, his little head all sweaty from the hot evenings and all the great questions he has. So the cycle starts all over again.
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