That Versus This State Fair

[Joe Gensle]

A chamelion's tiny leg is in an anklet, an anklet tethered to an easel-mounted cardboard by waysof a safety pin and it's something I've got to have even more than a Tilt-a-Whirl ride, corn on the cob on a stick, or stuffed toy the size of Martha Berfitello's grandmother and the squirted paint twirly-spinned art.  My whimpers and pleas promising good lizard-keeping prevail, answered by the proviso it must be our last stop on the way out to the car, tonight, and I'm walking around thinking about nothing except what I should name my new pal and if I need to catch grasshoppers or crickets for him to eat. 

That red line is an enemy sentry over the rides I want the worst, with its 42" height that might as well be six-foot-six because it fills me with resentment for the "You're a big boy..." lie my parents have told me all year (crying, taking out garbage, hauling sacks of mowed grass to the alley)). My pipsqueaks' prohibition from these red-lined rides is indisputable testament to the reality that I am a little boy of five or maybe a more terrible notion that my growth is stunted and I might  never-ever ride a real 'roly coaster."

Jack's hand smothers mine because if Dad spots my sixteen year-old brother's not holding my hand, we'll both be beaten bloody, and maybe even in the fairgrounds parking lot.

Squished onto the concrete seats of grandstands left over from a turn of the century trotters' track, the fair's nightly fireworks show has everyone's eyes and awes skyward except for me, fantasizing I'm Tarzan, a new father and Saint Francis of Assisi all rolled into one and all because of an ill-fated carney's lizard pinned to my garment formerly known as 't-shirt' but now permeated with corn butter, snow cone sloppings, honey from 'Indian' fry bread, corn dog mustard, and extra stickiness from cotton candy that just doesn't behave in an Arizona  dust devil.

Had that been 2012 instead of 1959, I would have been beaten by COPS (children of PETA supporters) thwacking me with their protest signs after they tore my flannel shirt away to free the lizard and heralding a victory for Noah's arkdom, and all I would have probably gotten to ingest would have been a Prune Vitamin Water, soy burger on 41-grain bun, and dried apple-banana slices from some scrawny backpacker-hippie peddling it from the same table as his incense sticks.

[Joe Gensle]

omg SEE! ya stop doin' this and ya can't even count to or stop at s-i-x... TYVM, sir Michael!

[Gita]

Ah the only thing worse than a PETA member is a child PETA member. Glad to know you were not one.

[Michael Brown]

Loaded with details pertinent to then and now. Wonderfully alive with color, and sassy enough to know it came from the Gensle keyboard. However, I counted seven full stops, so you're disqualified. I'm calling COPS myself. eh, eh, eh...

Truly, though, I enjoyed this much.