The Orange County Fair

The Orange County Fair opened today...and I wanna go! I have been to The Fair EVERY YEAR since I was in high school! My friend, Gina and I would go get an egg roll on a stick and a giant strawberry shortcake and then we would ride the ferris wheel or get an "old time" picture taken or a temporary tattoo...
A few years later, I graduated to taking my kids to The Fair...lots of time in the "kiddie" section riding Lady bugs and bumper cars, and marveling at the newborn piglets and taking our annual "four shots in the photo booth"!
Eventually, I'd take the kids there with their friends and meet up with them at a certain time. I still would get an egg roll on a stick, in memory of my friend, Gina, but then started to check out the "collections" booths (lunch boxes to baseball cards to troll dolls and more!) and the craft items and wander over to the giant fruits and vegetables.
My sister Gina and I saw Peter Frampton in concert at The Fair one year (sounded the same, didn't look quite the same!)...we saw Davy Jones, Peter Noon and...Bobby Sherman who sang my song..."Julie Julie Julie, do ya love me?!" (The first 45 I ever owned.)
The last several years I have taken my niece, Sunny to The Fair. Combining the best of ALL my memories, Sunny and I came up with our yearly Fair routine: Checking out the GIANT fruits and vegetables, taking a few rides (including the long long slide!) in the kiddie section, then riding the elephant (3 and 4 times at $5/each every time--plus photo!) topped off with a visit to the petting zoo, the newborn pigs and--OF COURSE--the CHICKENS!! Oh dear LORD, do we love those funny chickens! That is Sunny's favorite part...well, there's the ice cream and the cotton candy and the egg rolls too!
But Sunny is home in Hawaii now...and my heart is longing for a day at The Fair. Longing for a look at the giant squash...for a glance at a genuine Mickey Mantle baseball card...a peek at those piglets and for a photo near an over-grown chicken with a mohawk!
And--ah, yeah--for an egg roll on a stick...