Flashes of Panic

In Amherst, there are two signs that spring is wrapping up its construction work and letting summer take over, and they inevitably coincide on one week in May. The first is finals, and the second is the town fair. I couldn’t believe it when they started setting up outside my window my sophomore year, when I lived even closer to the Common than I do now. (It’s less than a quarter mile, now, two blocks or so; back then, it was just past the front yard.) I wondered it I would make it through finals.

I rolled by yesterday when they were setting up. Today, they opened a bit more than an hour ago. Now I’m thinking about just getting a big pad of tickets and spending the weekend going in circles. (I know, how is that different from other weekends…)

It’s not a serious fair, like the Tri-County Fair in Northampton in the fall, or the Cummington Fair in late summer. No barns of animals, no band stage or horse track, no oxen pull. Just a dozen or less rides crammed on the Common with the associated fried dough, cotton candy, etc., a sort of fast-food fair. But still, as James Joyce said, “Rapid motion through space elates one.”

I might be disappointed with Cummington this year—they used to have a lumberjack’s competition, but it looks like it won’t be there this year. If I ever can’t run, there’s something I might try. Assuming I didn’t cut any toes off learning, of course.

Now playing: This Dreadful Life from Cherry Marmalade by Kay Hanley