California State Fair

As most of you know, I take care of my disabled mother. Every once in a while, I am able to get someone else to stay with her for a while so I can have a little time off. Someday, I'd like to have a longer period so John and I could have a honeymoon. But that is not what this blog post is about.

I want to tell you about yesterday. My sister took care of Momma so John and I could go to the California State Fair. One of the benefits of living in Sacramento is that we have the state fair here. I was especially interested in an exhibit called "Get Animated!".

It was wonderfully inspiring and uncomfortably crowded. (I prefer to visit the fair on a weekday to avoid crowds, but Sunday was the only day my sister was available.) There was a thing that's hard to describe. I think it was called a zoetrope (?) but I'm probably wrong. It was a horizontal wheel in a glass case. Cartoon figures were arranged around the wheel in various positions. The wheel spun while lights flashed. It was synchronized so that it looked like the figures were frolicking around the wheel.


There were wonderful examples of cels and animation art. Gertie the Dinosaur made an appearance. Every here and there is a television set showing cartoons or information about animation or animators. One show stopped me cold.

A man on a TV was talking, I think about cartoon toys. It was so noisy in there, I couldn't hear what he was saying. But he held up a talking Casper the Friendly Ghost. It was exactly like mine!

Santa Claus brought me Casper when I was five. I still have him. He still talks, but he's starting to sound a little blurry. His body is white terrycloth. I played outside with him when I was little. He needs to be cleaned. I've always been afraid I would damage him if I tried. It was eerie to see him on that TV at the fair like that. I knew he was at home.

There was a wonderful selection of cartoon toys for sale. I was tempted by an old-fashioned Mickey Mouse doll. It was $25. They had a Minnie, too. I thought about buying them. But then I thought about what would I do with them when I got home. And I knew that there would come the day when I would wish I hadn't spent $50 on toys.

John is the sort of person who will get into a long conversation with a stranger, especially at the fair. I found him discussing his time with Hanna-Barbera with a gentleman with an animation gallery. John was an in-betweener. I enjoyed looking around while he talked. Later we both met a lovely young lady who was conducting a basic class in character drawing.

John and I have only been married a month. It gave my heart a little thrill each time he introduced me as his wife!

We walked around the fair some more, but everything else paled in comparison to the animation exhibition. We shared a Merlino's orange freeze. Later, we shared a pineapple-orange one. I tried the chocolate-covered bacon. (not a freeze). John politely refused. We saw a life size replica of the Mars lander. There was some sort of dinosaur exhibit that we did not see, because the line to get inside was way too long. Those people were standing in the hot sun for a long time.

We were hot and tired and our feet hurt by the time we decided to leave. We had parked across the street from the fairgrounds to avoid the $10 parking fee. When we finally got to our air-conditioned car (relief!) we went to Sizzler.

This was a rare treat. I don't know if they have Sizzler near you, dear reader. It's a restaurant that has steaks and other nice meals. They also have an all-you-can-eat salad bar with soft serve ice cream. It was heavenly. I got to be there with my sweetheart, eating delicious foods and discussing our wonderful day.

We did have to swing by my sister's house and pick up Momma. She was fine and seemed to have enjoyed her visit.