The Fair, The Gas Chamber and Caramel Apples

We are getting closer each day to the premier fall event of Mississippi. No I'm not talking about the Delta Tamale Festival (October 13-15) in Greenville, although 20 different tamale stands up and down two blocks of one street with no one telling you that you can't get a tamale from each of them is something to think about.


I am talking about the Mississippi State Fair October 5-16 on the state fair grounds in Jackson. As far back as I can remember, the fair has been an October event to remember. It has everything - Joe Joe the Shrimp boy, free Martha White biscuits with cane syrup courtesy of the folks at the State Fair Commission, the world's largest snake, shootings and stabbings, the dancer lady who turns into a gorilla right before your eyes,everything a kid would want to see. I doubt if many of you have witnessed the fair first hand - yes I know Otis2 always journeyed down from Carthage in the back seat of his dad's Nash station wagon with the cage on his lap and blue ribbon hopes in his heart to enter his pet rooster in the 4H poultry show. But most of you never experienced the sights and sounds of the fair.

A few things have held their place in my memory for over 60 years now and I thought I'd share them with those willing to read on. The first is the change in weather that occurs just like magic the first week of the fair. When I was a little guy, Mom bought my brother and I a new corduroy shirt each fall and usually the first night cool enough to wear it was the night Dad took us to the fair. Dad was a carpenter and money was tight at our house, so fair night was a big deal. We almost always parked in the Sears parking lot at the top of the hill on the corner of Mississippi Street and N. State because it was free to park there. For a 5 year old kid of the 50s the view when we topped the hill at the War Memorial Building and started down E. Amite toward the fairgrounds was something to see. Lights, Ferris Wheels, The Mad Mouse, The Royal American Shows Steam powered Calliope in the animatronic music wagon, the WWII search lights painting the night sky. You had to be there. Then about half way down the hill to the entrance gate you would pick up the smells.

Cotton Candy, roasting peanuts, Sausages with onions and peppers on a flattop grill, Smoked Turkey Legs, Chicken and dill pickles fried on a stick, Hamburgers cooking in the Wahabi Shriner restaurant tent. Pronto Pups! Not corney dogs, but real pronto pups with the little sombrero hatted dude on the sign. Malone State Fair Taffey stands at every gate and at each end of the "Mile Long Midway".

Money was never something Mom and Dad had much of when we were kids, but somehow, Dad always had enough for a Pineapple custard cone (5 cents) for each of us and a Candy Apple just as we were leaving. You remember them. Big Rome apples on a stick, dipped in that red candy shell that would pull a filling if you weren't careful or (my favorite)the equally tasty Caramel dipped version. I think candy dipped apples are my favorite memory of the fair, followed closely by the night I got to sit in the Parchment Prison Gas chamber, which they trucked to the fair one year so that all of the kids could stand in line to get their turn to take the seat while the big potbellied deputy shut that door and you imagined taking that last breath while your brother wished it were true just outside the execution device.

Anyhow, I grew up and began doing things they don't let kids do. I have not sampled a candy apple in years, but the grocery stores and Sam's now sell caramel apple stuff in a plastic lidded bin and we got some the other day.

IT TASTES JUST LIKE I REMEMBER CARAMEL CANDY APPLES TASTING!



Life is short and all of our days are numbered. Go get you some soon. Also in my opinion, attending the Mississippi State Fair is still worth the risk of getting shot.