Monday, September 3, 2012

Labor day activities, 2012 style


Last Night we went online to look up the Windsor Fair.   Horror of horrors!  There was no mention of any activities today at the fair and it looked like there was no fair today.  I was pretty much inconsolable because I had been looking forward to the Windsor fair for weeks.  Missed the fair two weeks ago at Skowhegan due to rain, and this weekend looked like it was going to be a good one and I wanted to go to the fair.  I went to bed totally demolished – no fair.  We had gone to the rock and gem and mineral show on Saturday but decided to not go to the fair but wait till Monday.  Then looked on the internet – no mention of the fair for Monday on their website……………….devastation.
Then this morning, I got to thinking – The president of the line dance club said that they were performing today at 1.30pm and that we should show up and dance with them when they invite the audience up to dance….and that there would be no class tonight.  So we decided to chance it – no mention on the website, but our leaders at dance group were going to perform…………..but first I had to cut my friend Sue’s hair.  We then delivered a birthday gift to another lady and off we went to the fair.  All was well until we reached the corner where we turned towards the fairgrounds.  Just got past the general store that advertises wedding dresses, guns and cold beer , Husseys Store, and the traffic slowed to a crawl.  Seems like everyone wanted to go to the fair and if not, then you had no  choice but to stay in line till you could get past the fair and continue on your way.
After what seemed to be way too long, we turned into the fairground parking and they took our admission price and stamped our hands as we turned into the parking lot.  Bill was hungry, so we looked at the “Grease to Go” food stands and chose the café they have on the grounds.  We shared a table with a couple who did not mind sharing the table and we had a wonderful time.  I talked to the lady about genealogy and gave her some internet addresses to look up that were free to help her with her research.  After lunch we wandered among the cows and sheep and goats and poultry and finally found the Windsor Fair Mall.
The Mall seems to have some of the same vendors available who were there at the Fiber Frolic weekend.  As we passed through the Mall building, we found ourselves at the entertainment stage and the Silver  Foxes Dance club was beginning their performance.  They looked nice with the men in white shirts, dark pants and cowboy hats and the women with white shirts and a decorated bandana on their shoulders and white shirts.  They did many of the dances that we do at class and it was a really good performance.
We then went to see the draft horses do their weight pull.  There was a wooden sled in the middle of the arena that had 1500pounds of cement blocks on them and these two matched horses had to pull this sled a certain distance.  I think that these horses do this feat often because as soon as they heard the chain latch over the hook on the sled, they dug deep and easily pulled the sled laden with the blocks for the required distance.  It makes me wonder what the origin of this weight pull could be and I think that it might have something to do with the early days when horses were used to pull logs out of forests etc. in the days before mechanization.  That is what I thought it might be but will have to look into it further to see if that is the origin of this activity.
After we had seen what we wanted to see at the fair, we left and went to Husseys.  Wow!  What a store.  When we went downstairs a customer was talking to a worker there and I heard him say “Well most of the customers now are ‘from away’.  I took pictures of various parts of the store.  They really should charge admission.  The locals say that if you need anything, Husseys carries it and if they don’t carry it, then you don’t need it.
After Husseys, we went down to Gardiner looking for a member who seems to have moved away and did not find them.  What I did see was really amazing.  On the front lawn of the house there was a pile of stuff with FREE written on it and we pulled in behind a man parked there and he was stuffing things he had retrieved from the pile into the hatchback of his car.  I noticed that he had a whole big box of stuffed toys along with assorted metal items.  He left and another car stopped and the people helped themselves to the pile; A good way to dispose of stuff if you don’t want to take it to the dump.
On the way home we stopped at the grocery store and I bought a Lobster.  The man was going to just sell me a live Lobster, but I had asked him to cook it.  He did and we ate Lobster for dinner.
We then went to see the Obama movie.  Enough said!
After the movie we started talking to a couple who also had sat through it and it was a good conversation.  I talked to the lady about genealogy and Bill talked to the man about the church.  The man had some questions about the church and so they had a good long chat.
I am glad that I can go to bed tonight – I am tired – and we had a full day.  Back to the Archives tomorrow and back to the task of preparing papers for digitizing for me.

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