The County Fair

Woody Whitbach ambled along the midway of the small carnival that had attached itself, like a tick on a hound dog, to the Somerset County, Pennsylvania county fair. He, being a raw-boned farm boy of thirteen, had never seen so many new things in one day. First there was the FarmAll “Dynamo” Wheat Combine which aptly combined the operations of cutting, raking, threshing, winnowing, bagging, and straw disposal ... all in one bright-red behemoth. Then there was cotton candy, spun fluffy and pink from some kind of metal contraption behind the counter of the Ladies’ Auxiliary tent. And corn dogs.  And big pretzels with mustard. And there were exotic breeds of cows, pigs and sheep; and an elixir called Kickapoo Joy Juice that was supposed to “make you more of a man.” Woody sensed that he knew what this phrase meant, but he couldn’t imagine why any man would need such help. He would get a boner just looking at the girdle ads in the Sears Roebuck catalogue.

All this novelty was causing his head to spin above the Ferris Wheel in an out-of-body experience. But he abruptly came crashing back to earth as he caught glimpse of a nude female breast off to his left. There, on one of the side-show stages, was the most beautiful girl Woody had ever seen, dancing the hoochy-koochy to some scratchy jazz-music coming out of two loud speakers hung above her head. She was wearing a number of diaphanous multi-colored veils that swirled around as she danced, exposing a shoulder here, a thigh there, and then the pale curve of her buttocks. But no matter how long he watched, he could not recapture another bared tit before this dancer retired behind the tent folds for her real “show.”

Woody was contemplating waiting around for the next “teaser” show. (He wasn’t a total rube ... his school buddies had given him this much prepping.) But it was getting late and since he had only one quarter left in his faded jeans, he decided to take the big step. With shallow breaths, he plunked down his specie and tried his best to saunter into the hot and dry “girlie” tent. After about five minutes the show began. Throughout this wait, Woody thought he might faint from the combination of his sexual arousal; the proximity of the other tittering teenagers and guffawing men; and the foul, stale air of the tent.

To a live drum beat, onto the stage came the most decrepit female he had ever seen. She was at least fifty with orange hair, sagging boobs, and hips, two ax-handles wide. She tried her best to reproduce the movements of the sylph whom Woody had seen only moments before. But the results were only laughable. Instead of rhythm, she had spasms; instead of allure, she had repulsion; instead of “take it off,” the crowd was shouting “put it on.” After a few minutes of such farce, the barker from out front came on stage to say that the “real show” was about to begin in the rear tent. For only one dollar more you could therein see Gloria (the tease dancer) and “all of her womanly charms.”

Since Woody was out of money, he slouched out of the tent and thence onto his daddy’s waiting pickup truck. The cool night air dashed his arousal as he rode home in the back of the truck. Chores resumed the next day and school began the next week. Woody spent a long and a sweaty year saving for the next summer’s Somerset County Fair. This time he showed up with five whole dollars and he wasted no time looking at the cows and the combines.

© Copyright, George W. Potts