That Thing We Do
I dig out chunks of black biological mass from my nasal passage and proceed to exhale forcefully through my nose for several minutes. This breed of dust booger digs in like a ball of barbed wire. Olfactory senses return and the rush of sugar and fry oil tickles my nasal hairs and possibly triggers regret. A toddler-size stuffed banana with dreadlocks watches me, and looks kind of stoned, but still appears to pass some kind of judgement. Maybe that second scoop of ice cream was unnecessary.
But I ate it anyway because it was delicious. Something I can’t explain to the banana is the loss of rationale that occurs at the fair.
I’ve gone to the Northwest Washington Fair most of the years I’ve been alive. It’s the only gathering in the county that brings every walk of life together. The city dwellers, the farmers, the political activists, the salesmen, the caterers, the artists, the government agencies, the carnies, and the straight up nut-jobs. It’s the craziest occultish gathering.
In all the years I’ve gone to the fair, nothing has changed much. The biggest change happened when they added a beer garden a few years ago. The musical acts might get bigger — Ted Nugent played one year, and they might move the location of the Ferris Wheel but everything remains constant. That’s sort of been my problem with it. Nothing changes.
I wrote a paper in my senior year of high school about my personal beliefs. In it I damned tradition for stifling creativity and potentially holding us back from advancing forward. I blamed loyalty to the precedence of our forefathers as a major problem in our society that limited the scope of our aspirations.
Six years have passed since I wrote that paper and six years have seen great change. I shot out of the gate so eager to achieve, and achieve quickly, because that was the pace set for me in school. I wanted to create as much distance as I could from the stifled and tradition bound life I wrote about. I wanted to prove people wrong — like the heroes do in the movies. Only I had no one to prove wrong. Unlike the movies, people were surprisingly supportive and encouraging. They may have acted like cocks every now and then but for the most part it was nothing personal. I was a bit of a cock myself.
Before attending this years Northwest Washington Fair, I spent the month of July in Mazatlán, México. The thing I love about México, and so many other countries outside of the U.S. and Canada, is how steeped in tradition the cultures are. When I see strip malls and large U.S. retailers in these places I sometimes want to scream at everyone around, “You’re going in the wrong direction! Stop wearing suits and ties, or polo shirts and khaki pants. Stop selling burgers and fries, stop pushing 40+ hour work weeks. Stick to your roots and embrace the traditions and cultures we’re asking you to dismantle.”
My favorite routine in Mazatlán was my morning walk to get a crummy coffee from the Oxxo (7-eleven like gas store) a few blocks from where I was staying. At 7:30am I walked along the malecón, the waterfront street, and passed by the fisherman who arrived with their mornings catches. The Old Man and the Sea came to mind as I watched these salt of the earth men gut their fish and throw the scraps to the pelicans gathered nearby. For a few moments fiction became reality. I observed, felt, and breathed the words Hemmingway put to print 63 years ago. The salt was pungent and the air was soaked with the Spanish banter of the fishermen and the cries of the birds competing for scraps.
I observed the fair with fresh eyes this year. A different mind than an 18 year old angst-ridden teen. The fair felt steeped in Americana like that of the old days, maybe because all the rides and games were from the 50's, but they were also the center to this annual gathering of citizens from a common culture. What Carnaval is to Brazilians, what Palio di Siena is to the people of Tuscany, the fair is to Americans. It is our culture, our heritage, and the thing we do each year to come together and enjoy, embrace, and endulge in our culture.
It’s easy to forget that we are the young nation in the world stage. The frustrated youth pushing our ideas out there — baffled that they aren’t the status quo already. Perhaps it is a good thing for us to hold on to the traditions set in place; let them be a moment we can center ourselves and remember that place we came from. Then we can measure how far we should go.
