On the Fair and the Rodeo Parade
Jul. 13th, 2005 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardJazz in the Valley is just around the corner, which means marching band is just down the block, which means Fair and Rodeo are idling together in front of the gas station a few blocks away, smoking cigarettes and drinking root beer in the hot summer sun.
Where I live, when you say "fair," it means only one thing: The Kittitas County Fair and the Ellensburg Rodeo, all rolled up into one. It's the biggest event of the year, and there aren't many people in the county who don't do one thing or another. I used to show dogs for my 4-H club; now I march in the Rodeo Parade with the EHS band. I have friends that show goats, cows, pigs, horses - any kind of livestock you can think of, it'll be on display at the Fair. Barring the more exotic animals, of course. It's not just the livestock that gets shown, either. Photography, baked goods, floral arrangements, knitted goods, various miscellanea - all of that gets shown, judged, and beribboned. I entered earrings in the Fine Arts category at least one year, and came away with a blue ribbon.
Fair isn't just - a competition, and it's not just a big tourist trap. It's both, of course, but that's not all. I could make noises about "community pride" and "western history" and however true those might be - that's not all of it. Fair's where you get together with your friends and you walk around. You ogle the guys, you ride the rides, you eat too many elephant ears (or in my case, scones), you rip the labels off the root beer bottles and drink them in the Frontier Village. You buy penny candy, you eat pickles, you spend five bucks on the fake ride-a-bull, you get sick on the Octo-whatever ride because you've gone on it twenty times. You preen a little as people recognize you as part of the band and congratulate you, you cheer for your friends when you walk into the main livestock barn, the one with the sheep and the goats, and see them showing their animals. It's not hard to marvel a little when another friend points out her sometimes-great-grandfather on the mural outside said barn, because maybe her blood's not New York or Boston blue, but it's Ellensburg blue, and everybody knows the Kellehers.
Fair is the long hours marching into the night, getting yelled at by the drum majors, drilling until you think your legs are going to fall off. Fair is "BARK LOUDER!" from your band director when it's already dark out and you've been marching for the past two hours. It's "SIR, YES, SIR!" to the director and the drum majors, and it's "YES, SERGEANT!" to Sarge. Not "sir," "sergeant." It's spending an hour on left turns and right turns, and then spending another hour marching yourselves into the ground until your hands clench up around your instrument and it's not quite perpendicular or parallel anymore. It's when the notes of the songs blend together and you can't quite tell the Fight Song from "Johnny Be Good," but when you come back to yourself, still four blocks away from the school and how many times have you passed the middle school now, your director's smiling and the trumpet player in front of you is actually in step. It's the shock of cold metal against your face in the evenings, it's "CHINS!" "BULLDOGS!" "CHINS!" "BULLDOGS!" until you want to scream, and then it's trying to hold your instrument and eat a popsicle while trying to grope your through a pitchdark covered passage back to the band room.
Fair is the Rodeo Parade. It's getting to the high school two minutes late on Saturday morning and running down the halls while simultaneously trying to fit your instrument together and tuck your shirt in. It's running into the band room and thinking everyone's already left when you see the tail end of a blue shirt turning the corner up ahead of you. It's your black hair tie breaking and the drum major forcibly doing up that one cute alto sax's hair. It's mustering out on the street and standing stock still, getting lint-rollered by the parents and your shoes spraypainted black by Sarge, so that when you step away from the pavement there are "spontaneous combustion" marks. It's the click of the drums, not in cadence, but the steady "click. click. click." of the death march. It's single file, fighting to stay in step with a line of seventy people in front of and behind you, and keeping your eyes not to side but dead ahead. It's the photographers hiding in the bushes to snap pictures of seventy pairs of feet exactly in step. It's not moving for half an hour in parade rest while Eisenhower in their fancy uniforms looks on, shako hats tucked under their arms and white gloves on their hands. It's marching the parade and stopping too early, double-stepping to get back into your rank, not the one behind you, while the altos give you disbelieving looks and your guide right gives off the silent, "you are dead, freshman" air without moving a hair. It's the realization, "this is it?" when the parade finishes and you can relax, put your instrument down on the grass and grab a burger, then wait on the corner for Ike to arrive. It's eyeing the other band like their aliens from outer space, the little competitions as the saxes - altos, tenor, and the bari gets a lick in too - stare each other down and try to play their way above the others, and the drumline getting into it too, until it looks like the quads player is about to throw down and the whole band finally just plays the fight song. It's mustering again while the results are read (because it's a competition too, just like everything else), and the silent cheers because if you move from attention, the drum majors will kill you and hide the body. It's standing for another half an hour outside the rodeo arena while the wind whips dust around you, and you're pretty sure that's why your flute hasn't worked since August. It's laughing and joking all the way back to the high school when your gig's finally over, and it's going back to the fair with your friends, showing off the stamp on your hand and saying, "I'm with the band."
That's what Fair is, and that's what summer all comes down to, in the end.
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Date: 2005-07-14 12:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-14 12:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-14 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-14 01:30 am (UTC)Band is - I love it. It's hard to describe as anything but what it is, and I don't care much for the fair outside of the scones, the curly fries, the company, and the competition. It feels, sometimes, like the whole summer's spent building up to the Fair and the Rodeo and I guess it is. It is for the people that compete, one way or another. 4-H, Rodeo, or Band - that's what summer's for.
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Date: 2005-07-14 01:43 am (UTC)Heh. Man. I hate the rides, actually. I just get sick/dizzy on them. I tried the booth thingies because I didn't have anything else really to *do*. Just walking around and all. And looking at the livestock. It was like... five bucks for 3 shots, I think, with the cork guns. And I spent like $10, and ended up winning a bear.
It feels, sometimes, like the whole summer's spent building up to the Fair and the Rodeo and I guess it is. It is for the people that compete, one way or another. 4-H, Rodeo, or Band - that's what summer's for.
I guess that's a thing in a rural area-- building up to a specific event, 4-H or whatever. In Boston... in Boston, as a city, it seems like life has an axis shift when it gets warm. The Red Sox come back to play, and when the Sox play, it's a party. And the tourists come and get lost the minute they step out of their hotel. The population of street artists expands, and the homeless youth chill in their own hotspots with their faded backpacks and spanging signs and pets and stuffed toys. In Boston, there's music in summer-- street drummers, speakers blaring. Concerts on the Common or at the Hatchshell, or Copley Square. Summer's like-- pack it in before winter comes. Scare the tourists.