HOT, HOT, HOT
COLUMNIST RECALLS A HEATED VISIT TO THE OKLAHOMA STATE FAIR
hate to say it, but when I think about the
Oklahoma State Fair, the first thing that comes to mind is delirium-inducing heat. That’s all because of one particular fair more than 10 years ago.
Don't get me wrong; I think the fair is great. I'd go more often if I didn't have a social anxiety thing about crowds.
And if I could regulate my body temperature better. This year's fair, which starts Thursday, looks like another hot one.
As you know, The
Oklahoman covers the fair extensively, which makes sense because it’s one of the state’s biggest events each year. We publish a special guide to the fair, and most days that it runs we send a reporter to the fair to cover a different aspect of it.
Writers report on rides, games, food, shows, livestock and anything else that captures their fancy. The best photograph I’ve ever shot was at the fair. It’s an image of the Swifty Swine Racing
Pigs rounding a corner, little legs propelling them forward with shocking quickness.
Going to the fair is generally a fun assignment. Hard to think of any other gigs in which reporters are encouraged to eat Indian tacos, funnel cake and deep fried Twinkies.
One September, though, I showed up at work prepared for an ordinary day. I expected to go down to Oklahoma City police headquarters and track down an interesting crime story. Instead, I was sent to the fair.
I arrived in early afternoon, so the fairgrounds were sparsely populated. I felt a little out of place in my normal work attire— dress shoes and trousers, a long-sleeved white button-down, a necktie and a sweater vest— but I had little choice. My home was clear on the other side of town, so I resolved to make the best of it.
The heat may have contributed to the paucity of people in attendance. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing the thermometer topped 100, especially on paved surfaces, and there wasn’t even a hint of a cloud.
The brightness of the sun produced all sorts of glare, even though I was wearing sunglasses.
I milled about for a while, looking for a story. Gradually I realized that my best option was to talk to young mothers and their children; they’d come to the fair despite the heat, drawn by the promise of rich treats and the excitement of simple rides.
The trouble is that while I’m great with middle and high school kids, I’m not good with small children. Never have been, really.
I have a slew of nieces and nephews, but I’ve held only a couple babies in my life, and each time it was with the concern of an idiot trying to defuse a bomb. Babies seem at once incredibly fragile and incredibly dangerous, capable of spewing unpleasantness from any orifice without provocation.
Toddlers and the like behave in unexpected ways. Some have no hesitance around strangers and will tell you meaningless stories that meander and repeat, leaving you bewildered. Others curl themselves around a parent and refuse to say anything at all. From an objective standpoint, children are as unpredictable as wild beasts. They always catch me off guard.
By the time I approached a mother and her children, I could already feel perspiration behind my sunglasses and trickling down my back. I begged the mother’s pardon and asked if I could talk to her briefly. She agreed, and I began an awkward interview.
Aside from getting her name, age and the names and ages of her children, I didn’t have much to ask her. Why had she come to the fair? Was the weather bothering her? What were the kids enjoying most? Then I turned to the eldest child, hoping that for once I would manage to successfully interview a youngster.
Put me in front of a child, and decades of interviewing experience vanishes. Instead of open-ended questions, I ask queries that can only be answered with yes or no. I kneel to get down to their level, but I never know what to say. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: “Hi there. Aren’t you cute? I’m Ken.”
Child: “Mommy! Mommy, look! Look, mommy! I’m [inaudible] with my flip-flop.”
Me: “Are you having fun at the fair?” Child: “Flip! Flop!” Mother: “Tell him, Tiffany. Are you having fun? Are we having fun here at the fair?”
Child: (somberly) “I like ice cream. Skrimple flurgle boknarl bledness.”
Me: (looks hopelessly at child’s mother.)
Mother: “She means she likes the rides.”
Me: “Oh. You like the rides? Which one is your favorite?”
Child: (Puts entire fist in mouth.)
With that enlightening interview completed, I looked around for someone else to bother, but now the heat felt like an intentional attack, as if the sun was glaring at me because of my awkwardness around children.
Part of the problem was my sweater vest. No one else in Oklahoma is dumb enough to wear sweater vests during the summer, but I had little choice. At the risk of sharing too much ... shortly after I was hired by the newspaper, nearly 18 years ago, I developed a chronic pain condition in my lower abdomen. I couldn’t — and still can’t, for that matter — endure anything tight around my waist, so I wore trousers and boxers that were much too large, both of which were held up by suspenders.
To hide the baggy waistbands, I wore sweater vests every day. Most people assumed the vests were simply an affectation, a signature look, but in fact they served the practical purpose of allowing me to live somewhat normally despite constant pain. They weren’t very comfortable when I was forced to spend long days outside at crime scenes — or the fair — but they were necessary.
Fortunately, I had a secret weapon this year. My in-laws, knowing that my Pennsylvania blood had never adapted to Oklahoma heat, bought me an innocuous looking scrap of cloth, perhaps 18 inches long, wider than a tie but narrower than a scarf. I was to dip it in cool water and wrap it around my neck. Its packaging promised the cloth would cool me off by as much as 10 degrees.
I dumped a bottle of water onto the cloth and positioned it around my collar. At once I felt a delightful chilliness; now the liquid running down my back was cool water instead of sweat. I felt a bit ridiculous, but I could continue my work, which I did, talking unproductively with another mother/child combo.
Within 10 minutes, though, the cloth had dried out. Now it was just another layer of clothing. I found some more water and soaked it. Again it lasted only several minutes. I could feel my head burning in the sunlight. I’m the sort of pale that never tans, only burns. The redder my head got, the worse I felt, and even hiding in the shade and drinking root beer didn’t help much.
By then I’d loosened my tie and opened my collar. My sleeves were rolled up. I’d even pushed down my socks, making them pool around my ankles. The water from the cloth had dripped onto my sweater vest, which didn’t leech it away as quickly. I looked as if I were wearing a Rorschach blot.
I wanted to flee to the air conditioning in my car, but I didn’t have enough to write a story about, so I dunked the cloth again and headed out. People were more wary of me now, avoiding my gaze or hurrying away.
In retrospect, I understand why. I’d wrapped the cloth around my nose and mouth, using it to suck in some humidity. Each time I soaked it, I placed it somewhere new: down the front of my shirt like an ascot, draped over my head like floppy dog ears, looped around my wrists. Water dripped onto my clothes, but the chilling cloth would not retain it. Despite its promise, it was more of a sieve than a mechanism for evaporative cooling.
Eventually I tucked it in a pocket and started buying water bottles. At first I took a few gulps, but then I resorted to simply pouring the water over my head. I probably did that about three times before giving up entirely. I trudged back to my car, sopping wet (but suffering from the humidity) and clutching a gallon of root beer, which I paused to guzzle every 10 feet.
I sat in the car for a long time, letting the AC grow colder, feeling the sweat on my arms harden into salt. By the time I got back to the paper, I’d pulled my tie tighter and didn’t look as blotchy, although several people commented on my glowing sunburned head. I didn’t have much to say to them. I was dehydrated to the point of utter exhaustion.
Somehow I wrote a story that day, and an editor deemed it good enough to publish. I never used that cooling cloth again. I don’t actually remember if I threw it away or if it vanished on my journey back to the car.
My love of the fair remains undiminished. I just need to attend it in an air-conditioned space suit.