State Fair, 1952.

Fresh from hiking Katahdin to the north,
we boys stopped at the Plymouth State Fair in New Hampshire.
We showed off our muscles in the bull-standing barns,
averted our eyes from the hanging bulge of the old ram,
surveyed the pick of the harvest in the Grange Hall,
passed by the blue-ribbon cherry preserves,
the hobby collections of yarn covered coat-hangers, and grandmother's hatpins,
then headed for the Kewpie dolls of the Midway.
The most attractive were recent high school grads
with no place to go in those days, but to
the arms of the young husbands they had in tow.
Their long hair done up with the
same hairpins they had used to pit the cherries.

We stepped up to the High Striker,
but failed to ring the gong that their men easily did.
We strolled through the penny arcade
where Charlie Chaplin still roller-skated
through a revolving door with
an irate husband at his heels,
and where the growling bear refused to die
when we shot him through the heart.
We sampled Sam's Stinking Onions,
dipped our French fries into the
stainless steel bowl of ketchup,
and licked clean the dixie-cup cover
to get to Jane Russell in "The Outlaw".

Hot and sticky now, we ended our visit at the
far side of the fairgrounds with a crowd of older men
in front of the Hoochie-Kootchie tent
where the barker promised to show us
the wonders of the world.
He trooped out three frightened girls to
whet our appetites. Our eyes
rose up their blue diaphanous pants,
past their gold bodices and long dark hair
to the red fezzes fastened with
jewel-headed hatpins.
The same ones I now suspect they had used for
more urgent matters known only to their
fathers and uncles and to their
family doctors who hushed it up.
Then, I could only ask myself why
these skinny runaways with grimy hair and dirty feet,
not much older than us,
were here squirming beneath the bare bulbs
and why those men were oohing and aahing.
I turned away.

© Sherman K. Poultney 7 July 1991