That county fair aroma? It's love

We found love at the county fair.

Gee, I wonder how many couples can say that. A dozen? Few hundred? Maybe more over the decades.

County fairs are romantic by their very nature. For Deb and me, our love that ended tragically on Oct. 24 began at the 2009 Citrus County Fair.

---

The weeklong Citrus County Fair opens at 5 p.m. today. Food, fun, livestock, midway, and community groups/businesses setting up booths inside the main buildings.

It was in the Jacobs Building where the Chronicle booth has sat, I don’t know, forever.

So, harken back to 2009. I was trying unsuccessfully to get Deb’s attention. I’d stop by her office to chat, only to be interrupted by the phone calling her to a meeting. (I later learned that Deb asked the guy in the office next to hers to fake call her if he heard my voice outside. Oh, my. We laughed for years about that.)

March comes and up pops the booth sign-up sheet outside Deb’s office. It was her job to coordinate booth coverage, and I’d always enjoyed meeting with citizens who walked past the booth.

Well. I had a mission. Sign up to work with Deb at the Chronicle booth before she can change the schedule. For a solid week, I walked past the bulletin board several times a day to see if Deb changed her shift. I’d see that she scratched out Tuesday evening for Thursday afternoon, and I’d scratch out Tuesday afternoon for Thursday morning.

Finally, the schedule was set. We’d be working together on a Wednesday evening.

I don’t recall the details, but it was a jolly two hours. We joked, we talked, we interacted well with visitors. We sold a subscription or two. During the slow time, I told Deb behind-the-scenes stories of Citrus County politics.

Later, when our relationship blossomed, Deb often mentioned those two hours at the county fair booth as the springboard to possibilities she had not considered. She said no man had ever held her attention like that.

It’s not like we strolled from the Chronicle booth into the midway of love. No, our courtship still had several months to go before it was sealed.

But we never forgot the county fair’s role in our love story. And that makes this week a little sad as well. 

— I’ll be hanging out at the fair all week for blog material. One thing I won’t be doing is checking the archives to make sure I’m not repeating the same fair stories. That’s a no-win deal right there. The fair is basically the same from year to year — that’s why we enjoy it. In a time and county when change occurs daily, it’s nice to know we can count on the county fair to be nothing more than the county fair.

Here’s a favorite fair story I’m repeating for a friend who has rabbits.

As mentioned, coming up with fresh fair angles every year at the Chronicle was challenging. Unless actual news takes place at the fair, which is rare, fair coverage is somewhat cut-and-dried.

One year to break the monotony, the editor suggested reporter notebook stories. Each reporter had a day assigned to him/her to roam the fair and return with personal observations. Great assignment. Practically impossible to screw up.

So, it’s my day. I’m wandering the fair. I see a kid, about 10, playing a midway game in which he wins a white bunny rabbit. I walked over to get his name, and that’s when he told me he won a rabbit playing the exact same game at the prior year’s fair.

Holy cow! Reporter notebook heaven. Two bunnies won by the same boy? How heartwarming. I eagerly awaited the quotes I knew were coming.

“That’s incredible!” I said. Then, referring to the prior year’s bunny, I asked: “What did you do with it?”

He gave me a funny look. “I ate him,” he said matter-of-factly, then walked away as I scratched out my scribbles.

Of course he did. Silly me.

Come out to the fair this week. Never know what you might hop into.

Have a great Monday, friends.

Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Individual donations are appreciated through Venmo, PayPal, or Patreon.