Within one hundred paces of where I am sitting right now (and for the record, it’s 10:27am on Wednesday morning) exists pretty much any kind of fair food you could ever want. The shortlist: Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day 9: Too Many Food Options”
Frederick Fair, Day Seven: The Inevitability of Rain
A little girl skips through the light rain, her brown curls clinging to her forehead. She has a lollipop in her mouth and a miniature American flag in her hand. She splashes from puddle to puddle, the soles of her shoes slapping against the wet ground. Her mouth moves in small flutters, and because I have a girl her age I know she is probably telling herself stories, or singing. Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day Seven: The Inevitability of Rain”
Frederick Fair, Day 6: Another Time Machine
The eight-year-old boy scans the horizon. His mom says they are close. He rubs the sleep from his eyes with small fists and yawns, pleasure swelling at the thought that it is Friday, and they are almost at the fair. He leans his face against the car window, his breath glazing the glass.
Then he sees it, rising up beyond the small town like the north star, or the silos that used to help him find his way home: Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day 6: Another Time Machine”
“Them Preachers Don’t Know Nothin'”
If my grandfather was still alive, he would wear black shoes like that, and an old black belt like that one, and probably even sport those grayish, navy-blue trousers.
“Hey,” I shout to the man. “You need a drink?”
Continue reading ““Them Preachers Don’t Know Nothin’””
Frederick Fair, Day Two: My Grandfather’s Ghost
If someone guaranteed that my grandfather’s ghost had decided to hang around this smug little planet, but they wouldn’t tell me where, the Frederick Fair is the first place I would look. Everything I see around here reminds me of him: the tables he built that we still use; his sloppy handwriting on the outside of various bins; the old guy who totes away the trash (who is probably the age my grandfather would be, if he were still alive). Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day Two: My Grandfather’s Ghost”
Frederick Fair, Day One: The Flat Tire
We pull up beside the old trailer. Its silver outside flakes off, like that rock with the oily skin. Rust seeps down from the top corners like old blood, and even from the ground I can see the tin strips from where my cousin patched the roof years ago.
And the tire is flat. The tire is always flat. Each and every year we show up at the storage facility where we park our trailer, and the tire reminds me of the Shel Silverstein book, “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.” Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day One: The Flat Tire”