As we walked out of one of the many parking lots radiating like pie slices of trivial knowledge from the grounds of the fair, I saw a man leaning up against the hood of his red sports car and said for the first of many times that day “this is the best moment of my life!”

We had come to a county fair that afternoon to see a demolition derby and (I hoped) to find me a hat. Even outside the grounds the spectacle had arrived. This man was the figurehead of some massive cultural vessel, some kind of socio economic icebreaker, with it’s own unstoppable momentum. He had his shirt off, exposing the spare tire from his car, slung around his waist, under the skin. The car itself was a red Saturn (perhaps sports car was a little misleading) and he leaned against it, leering at pregnant teens, sipping a Coors Light.

I was already beside myself by the time we got inside and found our seats. I kept leaning over and whispering, “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, you pay for the whole seat but you only use the edge” in my best monster truck voice. It really was Sunday, I was standing in a crowd of like-minded people listening to their national anthem, as I looked around me I saw with satisfaction that most of them were singing along, hand over heart.

The derby itself featured car rolling, figure eight racing, a V8 derby where the winner was the last car running and one daredevil who jumped his car into a stack of others, four high. Each event was marked by my reiteration of the fact that I was again baring witness to the best moment of my life. The whole thing lasted about three quarters the length of our tube of kettle corn, I tossed the remainder into a trash receptical on the way out.

The fair itself was not an unfamiliar sight for me. I had grown up going to small town carnivals and as such was well acquainted with the zipper and other hot dog loosening devices. In the interest of full discloser I must point out that when I say “well aquatinted” I really mean from a distance. I am very familiar with the kind of stubborn negotiation required not to be dragged on to any ride at a fair. I was never much of a physicly adventurous child and my horizions have remained narrow as I have grown older. After making it clear that I was still very much a pussy, we made our way around looking at the rest of the sights. The food was basicly the same stuff I knew as a kid from this kind of venue although, as with everything else on this side of the boarder, larger and cheaper. I ordered a corn dog (amazingly called a Krusty Pup) and we took in the rest of the sights.

The rest of the sights included, and were limited to, a massive pavilion that contained everything I have ever seen for sale on infomercials, an oversized barn claiming to showcase livestock (it only seemed to have pigs) and a children’s science exhibit. I opted out of the latter for fear of coming across a booth explaining creationism. As we walked out I saw a sign that brought the rolling crest of my excitement to a sudden stop, while ensuring my attendance to the very next county fair I could find. I had missed the pig races. I could feel the wake of this cultural movement as I stood there, awestruck and too stunned to move. All I could say was “You know this really is a long way from Canada”