Weekend Column – A Special Day At The Fair

Sep 29, 2014 by winjaw

I took what is often called an “extended lunch” earlier this week.

My goal was pretty simple. I wanted to check out the rides at the Coweta County Fair. Well, to be honest, that was my secondary reason. I’ll get to the primary one in a second.

I am not, as the Little Black Dress constantly reminds me, fond of crowds. So heading out to the fair during the middle of the day was perfect for me. No massive hordes, no clowns coming up behind me honking their horn, you know the drill.

I’m always fascinated about how you can see something you haven’t seen in decades and your mind immediately recalls events of the past.

For example, I walked by the Himalaya. For those who have never been to a fair, this is a pretty awesome ride. You basically go at an absurd speed round and round in a circle with a dip or two. Then it stops and does the same routine, except backwards.

It hit me that that ride was more than 50 years old. I don’t mean that exact ride at the fair this week was 50 years old, but I remember riding one just like it as a kid.

I also remember convincing various young ladies I’d take to the fair to try it out. You’d sit side by side on a bench with a big bar across your knees to keep you from flying out. The key to the ride was to be on the correct side of the bench. The spinning force of the ride literally pushed one person into the other. Basically, I’m getting a big hug whether they wanted to or not.

I liked that ride.

But I wasn’t there for the rides. I don’t think I could handle the Himalaya anymore, much less the Speed Freak, billed as the “World’s Fastest Thrill Ride.” I did the Pirate Ship once years ago. Once. And now there’s the Cliffhanger, where you lie flat in a prone position and start going around in a circle while the ride tilts and …

I will leave that for others. The Dumbo elephant merry-go-round suits me now.

But there were plenty of others more daring than me. And they were whom I had come to see.
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During weekdays, the fair doesn’t open until 5 p.m. Except for that one Tuesday, when it is opened for a very special group. By the time I arrived, more than two dozen school buses sat empty in the parking lot.

The fair has been put on by the Newnan Kiwanis Club for more than 40 years. For the past 14 years, the club holds its weekly meeting at the fairgrounds and they open up the fair early for some extraordinary people.

There were 470 kids from the school system and another 70 adults from the Rutledge Center. Several were in wheelchairs. There also were many chaperones and parents there.

But today it was for those kids and adults, the ones with developmental disabilities.

“We want these individuals to have a great experience at the fair,” Gary Welden, the fair committee chairman, told me. “By not having it crowded, they can relax and they and their parents feel comfortable with the surroundings.”

No doubt. Empty wheelchairs lined the ramps as their occupants spun and flipped and twirled and went round and round. They were yelling and laughing and running and jumping and …

Acting just like any “normal” kid would at the fair.

What hit me the most were the smiles on everyone’s face. They were contagious. For those few hours those special needs kids and adults had the run of the fairgrounds. And they took every advantage of it, laughing the entire time, even when upside down on some ride.

As I finally left to head back to work, I wondered who had the most fun, the kids or the Kiwanis.

Until next time.