Opening Day: Wisconsin State Fair

Today marks the official opening of the Wisconsin State Fair! Are you going?? A few of my coworkers are going as spectators and a few (including myself) attending as exhibitors. This fair always bring back such good memories. Mostly the times spent with friends I showed with throughout the state and country. However our state fair has always been a relaxed show and more focused on enjoying the amazing food, spending time with friends, and my favorite: people watching:) As I was driving home I had a funny state fair childhood memory come to mind. When we were all the ages of 7-12 we used to play harmless tricks on the spectators walking to the barns. A few harmless tricks being: using adhesive (cow hairspray) to glue down coins or a couple bucks to the cement and see how many people would try to pick it up. Even better was when we taped a suppppper long piece of fish line to the back of a dollar. One lucky kid would get to be at the end of the string and we'd all hide in the stalls. Once we'd get a victim that would reach for the dollar the kid would pull back on the string. Most people fell for it and would be grabbing and reaching for the dollar. One poor guy even spilled his beer!
The grand finale trick was one that actually got us into a little trouble, not by our parents, the security guards!! However our parents were there the whole time watching us and even helped us with this trick. We had a fake fuzzy spider on along sting that we'd throw over the barn rafters. As fair goers would walk underneath we'd pull the string loose and let the spider fall right in front of the person's face and we (and our parents) would laugh and laugh at the harmless little prank. Well some old lady wasn't amused by our little joke and got the security guard involved and that was the end of the ole' spider trick. However I am proud to say until that incidence we were doing the trick for years; the spider was famous and would travel to a different person's house after each show.
Anyways we have a lot of good friends and the "kids" that I was once played spider pranks with are now some of my best friends. We've graduated from the prank joking and now spend a lot of time talking about cattle, careers and of course trying to make each year's champion party better then the last.
My parents actually met at the State Fair almost 35 years ago. So as you can see this has been in my family for many years, and is a family tradition. I'm happy my family's traditions revolve around the cattle industry.
N.Starr