- Clarke Wallace
- Oct 7, 2023
There is nothing like when I was a kid waking up early the
Friday morning of the Thanksgiving Weekend . Knowing
the Woodbridge Fair up at the local fairgrounds would be
plugging away over the next four days.
It’s amazing to think the Fair has been around since 1847.
That’s one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It was the town fathers ,
one of them my great grandfather, the local MP among them, who
got it up and running.
I can picture them crowding around someone’s kitchen table weeks
or months earlier, passing around a bottle of Scotch and arguing what
would best draw locals to the fairgrounds.
Top of the list would be the competitions. Best in show. Cattle
and horses.
A real showstopper? The local farmers rolling up their sleeves
in a fierce competition to show who could milk a cow faster than any
of the others.
What to see this year? Besides the large pumpkin contest? Motor
Cross. A real blacksmith banging away on the anvil, sparks flying. And
showing how women back then had handled pioneer cooking.
Throw in free parking on the grounds no less.
Author’s comment: A bunch of local kids, including me, would meet where
an unassuming hole had been dug under the thick wire fence surrounding the
fairgrounds And under we’d go.
The fun of it of it? Not getting caught. Or there would be hell to pay.