The Cumberland County Fair Ground is home to a large annual craft fair, sometimes called the Christmas Craft Fair, and we – CA, Ruth and I were there yesterday. The weather was perfectly situated in the 70’s with the occasional cotton ball cloud for accent in an otherwise azure sky.

I’m really not that big on Christmas. If some sleepy calendar editor left it out one year, I wouldn’t be too upset, if at all. However, around here it is considered by everyone else to be the premier event of the year, and it behooves anyone with a glimmer of hope for approval to honor the holiday gift-giving traditions and to keep cynicism down to a level that is easily managed with a dollop of high test gin toward the end of the day.

Ruth will be 92 in December and can negotiate the house with her walker but is bound to a wheel chair or her electric scooter when we take her out. The surface at the fair ground is mixed, so the scooter was out and the wheel chair, not being an all terrain vehicle, was even limited to some degree. It was rough going in some places but being the loyal mule that I am, we covered most of them.

Here’s the deal: you might walk right by some stuffed animal, umbrella, or bird house booth but one must occupy every jewelry booth completely. I lost count of them but I believe something like 400 sounds right. It’s truly amazing what one can find at these events even though you are not looking for anything. Speaking for myself, that is.

There were hundreds of people out looking for some hidden treasure. Not a few of them were testing the seams of their pants. People are getting larger and larger. It is becoming a darkly ominous norm. (Have you noticed the wide body wheelchairs at medical facilities lately?) The food fare at these events does not even get close to addressing this issue. It is more like fun food – the more you eat the more fun you have – and stretch pants are the best pants.

A fried dough stand loomed up ahead and Ruth asked about it. It had been a hundred years since I had had some, in Texas I think, where people eat anything, and I suggested that we split one of the dinner plate sized pieces with some cinnamon sugar on it. We ate in the shade of a big tent set up for just that purpose and we all agreed that it was not a memorable lunch. It’s the kind of activity one does at these events knowing that it would likely not happen in real life again for a long time.

We moved on to the next jewelry booth.

Of course I found a few things to buy. So what? After all I did eat some fried dough.