4 min read

Like a lot of kids in Maine, my wife and I have a lot of happy childhood memories of going to the county fairs.

For my family, the big one I remember going to every year was the Common Ground Fair. My dad would volunteer as security, so we got a a free camping spot; my sister inherited his massive collection of volunteer T-shirts when he passed. (Size XL men’s shirts look fashionably baggy on her, whereas on me they make it look like I’m trying to hide a pregnancy.)

My wife went to the Oxford County Fair every year. One of the fun parts of parenting is getting to pass on traditions, and while I’m sure some of what we did for fun as kids will end up being old and boring for Sonny as he gets older, fairs never really lose their appeal. They’re timeless. So this past weekend we took Sonny to the Oxford County Fair, his very first. 

We didn’t go on any rides, which is just fine by me. I’ve never been a fan of amusement park-style rides, other than the Astrosphere at Funtown Splashtown and the occasional merry-go-round. There will be plenty of time when he’s older for Sonny to drag me onto the Screaming Flyer of Certain Demise or whatever. 

I did have a very silly emotional mother moment and it didn’t even involve my own kid; although a kid was involved. A baby goat, that is. We were in one of the animal display barns and there was a baby goat alone in a pen, bleating and bleating and bleating, probably calling for its mother goat (or if we’re being accurate, its nanny goat).

Anyway, I had to leave the barn to collect myself. Sometimes I think motherhood hasn’t changed me all that much and then I have to leave a building because a goat is possibly distressed. (I don’t know enough about goats to know if that was actually the case and anyway, it was clearly a healthy baby goat and the kid is probably fine.) 

Being from Maine and all, I’ve seen plenty of cows, but it’s always been from the roadside. Up close, they’re a lot bigger than they seem dotting the fields of Smiling Hill Farm. Like, they’re absolutely, terrifyingly enormous. If they ever decide to rise up and fight back against humans we’re probably all done for. Fortunately, they’re also extremely cute.

Most of the bulls (I think they were bulls, mostly — not that I was going up to check) were in pairs and cuddled up to their stall partner like my dogs often do when hanging out, glutes to glutes. Most of the show pairs also had matching names: Maple and Sugar, John and Wayne, and my personal favorite by a country mile, Rat and King. 

I asked my wife, “Would you still love me if we were two cows on display at the Oxford County Fair?” And she said, “I would love you even more.” I don’t know what that means and honestly I’m too afraid to ask. 

No fair trip is complete without overpriced, epically unhealthy fried food and you know we got ourselves some $10 French fries, some Jamaican patties from a food truck that apparently lives here in Lewiston, so RIP what’s left of my waistline, and fried dough. I loved fried dough as a child but this was the first time I’d eaten it in approximately 16 years. My first job at Funtown involved making the fried dough and once you’ve seen how the sausage is made (so to speak), in 90-plus degree weather over an oil fryer, you lose your appetite for it. Fortunately, it’s been a long enough time since I was 17 and the memories have faded enough for me to eat it again.

Sonny also got to try a bit of French fry and fried dough, and unsurprisingly he was a big fan. Shoutout also to the Oxford County Fair for having a labeled “rest area,” which was a darkened, mostly empty quiet building that I think was intended for overstimulated babies to have a place to wind down for a few minutes because that’s what a couple families were using it for.

A fair is pretty stimulating even for grown-ups — Lights! Sounds! Smells! People absolutely everywhere! — so it was good to be able to give Sonny a break. And it must have worked; he didn’t have a meltdown at the fair and he fell asleep in the car ride home somewhere around Mechanic Falls.