To the kiddies, the State Fair means tons of fun, the animals, the rides, the sweets.
To adults, it is a festival of people-watching, some strange food, an exhibit or two, games of fat chances. It's the continuation of a tradition.
To some of the people in my neighborhood, it is time to take the good pots off the porch, to move the yard sculptures around back, to tie down the bird feeders, to put the car in the garage, to move the bicycles inside the gate, to tell the dog to get serious, to install the security camera out front.
It could be coincidence.
Or it could be the imagination of some.
Or it could be spontaneous mystification, similar to the way keys can simply disappear in small spaces. Keys frequently vanish between the car and the front door, between the living room and the kitchen, between the curb and the driveway. I have been so stumped by the seemingly impossible disappearance of keys in a restricted area that I have looked into my dog's mouth.
And sometimes during the Fair run, things in my neighborhood have been known to wind up elsewhere, to vanish.
One morning several years ago I went to get the newspaper and found on the front porch some flowers without their hand-painted pot.
Last in line: It's not that our neighborhood gets no respect.
It gets late respect.
Our neighborhood is next to where electrical workers convene during a storm emergency, just before driving right past us to fix somebody else's wires.
Our neighborhood is where varmints set up shop in mounds of tree limbs left uncollected for months after a storm.
We were the original midtown before it was swept four miles south. For some reason, repair crews start at the city's edge and work inward. We're one of the last stops on the emergency rehab routes.
We're about a mile from the fairgrounds.
Anybody moving into an older neighborhood full of cottages and sidewalks and front porches and houses with distinct personalities unlike any other are well aware that once a year the Fair comes to town and brings with it music acts you've almost heard of, and legendary traffic jams.
Rockwell probably painted families walking from their homes to the Fair.
It's the night riders on bicycles with big baskets that were unexpected.
They're probably just out for a little exercise after work, these strangers in dark clothing, pedaling rusty wheels.
Still, in some neighborhoods, this is the season for securing the outdoor furniture and sitting on your porch through a wee hour or two.
Original Print Headline: Fair season is unfair to neighbors
Jay Cronley
With the explosion of questionable material surrounding college football, the following meeting could be taking place in various offices of coaches throughout the country.
Who knows what's best?
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