The "'Grangeville', A Family Tradition" Story

It was an ordinary day. We had just left Jerry and Just Sue's house in State College for the Grange Fair. Jerry and Sue are our traveling friends who moved to State College after Jerry and I retired from teaching in 1999. We visit back and forth a few times a year and travel together for a couple of weeks each year. We have been going to the Grange Fair for the last 5 years. Once a year, Centre Hall, PA transforms into a suburb that kind of reminds you of a huge Boy Scout encampment. 980 tents and about 1,500 trailers fill the hillside next to Rt. 45 in Centre Hall for the 8 days before Labor Day weekend. Schools have to wait until the fair stops to begin for the new year. The fair, which celebrates farm and rural families, covers the 200 acre fair grounds with the tents, RVs, trailers, amusement rides, 7000 exhibits, a Grandstand for nationally known musicians, tractor pulling arena, livestock, 300 concessions and crowds of near 200,000 on a good day. The population during the 8 day encampment of "Grangeville" is more than 15,000. That's the size of some of the small communities in the area. They have their own sewer system, transportation system, post office, police station, Town Hall, beauty salon, grocery store, library and even have wireless Internet. Only thing they lack is a laundromat, but hey, you're only there 8 days so they can bring enough of clothes to cover that time. We used to get there early on Saturday morning of fair week and hit the horse competition for the morning. Last two years we decided the heat was too intense with all those people, so we came late afternoon. We still head to the horse stables to see the Clydesdales, Percherons, and Belgians. These are the huge draft horses that weight a ton each. They compete in 6 horse and 4 horse hitch competition. Beautiful sight! Today we were disappointed. No draft horses! And .... nobody knew why. Only two draft horses we saw were the two that the State Police were riding around the encampment. There was other horse competition, but none as interesting as the draft horses. So, we headed to the livestock buildings to see the dairy cattle, steers, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, and chickens. Fun time? You bet! We (me, I should say) enjoy making noises to attract the attention of the animals. Every so often an announcement would blare over the loud speakers. Kinda reminded me of Radar from M.A.S.H. Next was food. And .... boy was there food. You name it, it was there. Cotton candy, caramel corn, whoopie pies, funnel cakes, along with the Bar-B-Q, Sausage sandwiches, burgers, fried this and fried that. All hearty and healthy food. Every year Jerry and I always had to get a bowl of home-made bean soup and the girls would get vegetable. Another disappointment. No bean soup! So I had vegetable. Almost as good. Then came time for dessert. Should I have the peach dumpling with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream or maybe a hot sticky bun with tons of white icing on the top and a glass of milk. Neither of these can be good for you either. I guess that's why they taste so good! Well, the more I thought about my choice, the more I realized I was still stuffed from the picnic lunch Sue had provided only a few hours before while we were swimming at Whipple's Dam. I knew I shouldn't have eaten those dozen cookies she had brought. Maybe if we walk around the fairgrounds I would get hungry again. We ventured into the many exhibits they have to illustrate farm life. Baking contests, vegetable contests, tractor exhibits, 4H exhibits, etc. I visited the photo contest and was impressed with quite a few of the hundreds of photos on display. After an hour of exhibits, none of us still were not hungry, so we all boarded the tram and headed in the direction of Jerry's car. I vowed at that moment that if we came back next year to "Grangeville," I would do it different. Carol is going to have a t-shirt made for me that proclaims: "Life's Short, Eat Dessert First!" And ... I will!! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - pixs from top to bottom are: a sea of campers and RVs, one of the streets in "Grangeville" where the tents are located, little girl and her prize winning horse, horse stables, vendor area of the fair, dairy cow with her master, little girl with her prize winning rabbit, and "Dress your Goat" competition.