Also, I love this Icon
Jul. 28th, 2011 10:07 pmI've been working at AuthorSolutions for three weeks now. The number one thing about having a full time job? My god, the time just melts away. Three weeks has passed quicker than silver.
***
This year was the second time I visited the Fun Frolic (the June carnival sponsored by the university for charity) as an passing adult. When I was a little bit, the summer had two major markers of time: Fun Frolic time and County Fair time. Screw 4th of July-- these were the holidays where it was *at*. Only my birthday was better. So returning was a necessary goodbye, before I prepare to leave Bloomington sometime in the next year.
It was not fun, folks. There was no frolic. It was deeply depressing, a broken eggshell of a childhood dream. See what I remember was . . . well, every joyous night-time carnivale image you can think. Cotton candy handed to waiting parents, ten spins on the Tilt-a-Whirl, crushed hips from the Scrambler and all the lights your eyes could take. This . . . atrocity . . . this charlatan thing had, like, five terrifying rides and a lot of drunk teenagers. No parents with children, unless they were also drunk teenagers. Scary people running the games who yelled very rude things.
I am *convinced* that my nostalgia wasn't just, well, nostalgia. That place was awesome and lived up to its moniker, dammit. I swear to god it did.
So I tested my memory against my other Rite of Summer. I went to the fair.
Heat exhaustion aside (seriously, with a few days out, we have had weather that was both more humid *and* hotter than New Orleans and the Amazon rainforest for two weeks) the fair was a sweet and kind reminder than wasn't crazy. It was smaller than I remember, but anything will be when you've got three feet in height on your last visit, but it was no less pleasant. all the rides I remembered from the Fun Frolic had migrated to the fair, freshly painted and well maintained. There many crowds. We looked at scrapbooks, and pet goats. I got to hold a game bird, who wandered around the poultry barn on the shoulder of his 9-year-old owner. Yeah, we left sick and dizzy from the heat, and didn't even take our chances on any of the rides (save, of course, the Ferris Wheel), but it was worth it just to mark in my head that not all dreams have to be proved lies. Sometimes, that joy is still there.
***
This year was the second time I visited the Fun Frolic (the June carnival sponsored by the university for charity) as an passing adult. When I was a little bit, the summer had two major markers of time: Fun Frolic time and County Fair time. Screw 4th of July-- these were the holidays where it was *at*. Only my birthday was better. So returning was a necessary goodbye, before I prepare to leave Bloomington sometime in the next year.
It was not fun, folks. There was no frolic. It was deeply depressing, a broken eggshell of a childhood dream. See what I remember was . . . well, every joyous night-time carnivale image you can think. Cotton candy handed to waiting parents, ten spins on the Tilt-a-Whirl, crushed hips from the Scrambler and all the lights your eyes could take. This . . . atrocity . . . this charlatan thing had, like, five terrifying rides and a lot of drunk teenagers. No parents with children, unless they were also drunk teenagers. Scary people running the games who yelled very rude things.
I am *convinced* that my nostalgia wasn't just, well, nostalgia. That place was awesome and lived up to its moniker, dammit. I swear to god it did.
So I tested my memory against my other Rite of Summer. I went to the fair.
Heat exhaustion aside (seriously, with a few days out, we have had weather that was both more humid *and* hotter than New Orleans and the Amazon rainforest for two weeks) the fair was a sweet and kind reminder than wasn't crazy. It was smaller than I remember, but anything will be when you've got three feet in height on your last visit, but it was no less pleasant. all the rides I remembered from the Fun Frolic had migrated to the fair, freshly painted and well maintained. There many crowds. We looked at scrapbooks, and pet goats. I got to hold a game bird, who wandered around the poultry barn on the shoulder of his 9-year-old owner. Yeah, we left sick and dizzy from the heat, and didn't even take our chances on any of the rides (save, of course, the Ferris Wheel), but it was worth it just to mark in my head that not all dreams have to be proved lies. Sometimes, that joy is still there.