My turn: Fair memories always sweet

The mid-August aroma of fried food and sawdust, blended with the earthy fragrance of pigs, cattle, sheep and horses, takes me back in an instant to the county fairs of my childhood.

We feasted on hamburgers made by Floy Wilbanks and Ida Mae Zimmerman at the American Legion concession stand, fueling ourselves for repeat raids of the Merchants' Building in search of yardsticks and rain gauges.

Cotton candy came in only one color — pink — and it was made fresh while we waited, a warm cloud of sugar spun in a giant galvanized tub, twirled onto a white paper cone, best eaten at the top of the Ferris wheel.

Forty-six fairs ago, my mother shot a roll of Kodachrome film that became of our box of slides labeled, "Kids and elephant at County Fair, September 1966." I have long wondered how Queenie the Elephant and her unlikely sidekick, Cocoa the chariot-pulling pony, ended up in Portales.

I do vividly remember how Queenie's trunk felt, softly snuffling my almost 5-year-old hand for peanuts. Although the pictures argue otherwise, I am certain she was the largest and grandest elephant to ever tread the earth.

This is the 50th Roosevelt County Fair of my lifetime. I have missed very few of them. The memories are always sweet — as sweet as fresh-spun cotton candy on a starry summer night.

Betty Williamson believes there is something fundamentally wrong about cotton candy in plastic bags.

You may reach her at [email protected].