We go to the North Carolina State Fair 2008

No visit to the State Fair would be complete without some shots of the All-American foods and their special food group. Note All-American flag, indicating that it's patriotic to eat deep-fried pecan pie...

...note the effect on the customers.


I am very partial to Hot-dog Man.


Our actual primary destination was "the Village of Yesteryear," a strange round brick building full of craftspeople.

It was there that I ordered my settee in 2005. I received it in October 2007, two years later, the wait was totally worth it.


This year I liked the Haliwa-Saponi pottery of Senora Lynch ...


... particularly the pot on the right here.



I would happily pay $2.00 to get rid of him if I had him.


Spider Girl was only 50 cents. The only cheaper thing I saw at the fair was the incredible tiny horse. Well, I didn't actually see him (the tiny horse) because I didn't pay my quarter. He was hidden behind a hay bale.


I saw Fran Martin's special painting pig, Smithfield, who is also renowned for having recovered from cancer after many radiation treatments and chemotherapy. There are bleachers so you can sit and watch him create his masterpieces.


You can buy his paintings, and there's also a calendar for sale. He was on NBC's "America's Got Talent," but the judges didn't think Smithfield's paintings were very good, so he didn't make it to the semi-finals.


This is the self-image of the marines?

We ran into a young man from Channel 11 News interviewing an extremely tall woman and I, inveterate eavesdropper, crept as close as possible to hear her. She was pointing out that times are hard and the fair is expensive, as are the sandwiches (mostly $8), the funnel cakes ($5), and most of the other things (but not the spider woman, see above).

Since I'd crept in so close, I was the next target. "What do you think of Bobby Flay being paid $100,000 to come cook at the State Fair? What do you think about the fact that the Fair lost $45,000 on him? Audience members paid $32 to see him: how much would you have paid? Why do you think the Fair spends so much on marquee entertainers?"

I said I wouldn't have paid anything to see Bobby Flay because I don't barbeque and besides, I could see him free on tv; that probably the uncle of somebody on the budget committee is the agent for all these acts and gets a cut, that's how things work in North Carolina; that maybe, anyway, Bobby Flay was worth it because he generated a lot of publicity -- after all, consider the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee on Sarah Palin's clothes, it was probably worth it, everybody runs pictures of her, she's foxy.

The guy laughed and said, "I had a feeling you were gonna go there," looking at my "Real Americans for Obama" pin, which I hope makes it onto the news.

We looked and looked and looked for the Democrats' booth and finally gave up and asked, and after we got the directions we STILL had trouble finding it. See how tiny it is? And wedged between "King Size Soft Pretzels and Eggrolls" and "Nature's Best Muscadine Grape Diet Supplement"? I asked them and they said: "We don't have any say about where they put us." I gave them all the "Real Americans for Obama" buttons I had managed to make this morning with my Mr. Button machine.



In a much more prominent position, in a nice big easy-to-find high-traffic center corner booth, the McCain/Palin - Elizabeth Dole folks were doing a roaring business in buttons, t-shirts, and stickers.


These ladies were in the breezeway between two buildings. I told them they were extremely natty and they admired my button and the fact I made it myself. Red and purple, I love the color scheme, but, is this some kind of cult?

UPDATE: Science Goddess informs me these are members of the Red Hat Society for saucy older women. Thanks!


This is why real women don't stand a chance. I guess (see above) I should get myself a red hat and join the ladies on the bench.


My final shot was taken at the traffic light at the exit. Really, this is the dumbest men's fashion ever devised, and it's been hanging on (so to speak) for so long!


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