All's Fair in Derbies and Oreos

When I was a freshman in High School we had a foreign exchange student visit and stay with us from Japan. Her name was Noriko (I remember this because she is on the height chart at home, and anyone who spends more than a casual visit at our house ends up on the height chart) and we showed her all around Whittier. I can't remember all the places we took her, but I do remember the thing that she was most interested in was not Disneyland or the beach. It was a Supermarket. Noriko, myself, and my mom walked all around the store, and she just took it all in. To her, the variety was astounding. We had jello the night before, which she had never tasted before, and she wanted to take some home and make it for her parents. What she was seeing was the real America.

On Friday night I headed up to the Montgomery County Fair with Mary, Russ, and Heather. Our plan was to enjoy the Demolition Derby and go to town on fair food. We accomplished that to a wonderful degree.

As far as I know I had never been to a demolition derby. This was legitimately fun. That fun wasn't limited to what was happening on the track, the local talent was amazing. The first person I remember seeing was a a woman shaking her first, a cigarette in the other hand, and a shirt which was way too tight. We eventually tracked down our other friends Natalie and Patricia and set in for a fun evening.

I was surprised by the intensity of the wrecks. These cars were slamming into each other with impunity. There was a 4 cylinder division with the compact cars smashing into each other. I couldn't help but get into it, the intensity in the stadium was out of control. People were yelling, pointing, and cheering on the carnage. The orange station wagon known as the Chunkin Punkin deserves a special mention. Although it didn't win it took an incredible amount of punishment.

Once we the derby was over we headed to the Midway to check out the food, rides, and games. I was tempted to try and win a goldfish, but then decided, that even if I did win, I didn't want to haul it around all night. Mostly I just wanted to eat fair food. Fried things, sauce dipped things, and things on a stick. We took a lap and the group collectively decided that we wanted to try deep fried Oreos.

They were supremely delicious and given the opportunity I would be eating them at this exact moment. There was a bit of an incident with the powdered sugar but that resolved itself quickly enough. As I was walking around I thought I wonder what Noriko, or Stéphanie or any of my non American friends would think of this fair. The food, the bizarre people. I feel like this is what the world thinks America is really like, and they might be right. There was an animal sideshow that included a five legged sheep. Even four days later I am still haunted by that five legged sheep. Unfortunately no one took a picture of it.

After the Oreos and a corn dog I had earlier, I was still hungry, so I ordered a platter of ribs from the supposedly award winning BBQ stand. They were good but not spectacular. About this time I was hitting the proverbial wall. I was full, I had been thoroughly entertained, and was ready to head back to Arlington. We thought it might be a good idea for posterity to take a group picture.

If our adventure had ended here, the evening would have been a rousing success on its own, but no. The adventure. Because of an overly ambitious, and terrible towing company, Patricia's car was no longer in the lot where she left it. We drove over to the towing company and found other friends who were in the same boat. Dave the possibly tweaked and definitely overwhelmed towing attendant was unwilling to budge on letting the cars out. Many approaches were taken and Mary even had a bit of success, but it was ultimately the heroic efforts of the Montgomery County Police and Officer Darren Jones in particular that got the cars out free of charge. I did not contribute much to the effort other than to encourage the officers to taser Dave. Fortunately the officers held great restraint.

A blast of an evening and yet another example of how lucky I am to have to life I do.

*Big Ups to Hickson Texas Ranger who provided the pictures, and is very smart,and didn't really want to be on Pete Chat but here she is anyway. Thank you Heather.