State Fair of Texas - Stories for my grandchildren

In 1953, when I was 12 years old, much to my mother's dismay, my father took me out of school one Monday and he and I went to the Fair.

When first my way to fair I took
Few pence in purse had I,
And long I used to stand and look
At things I could not buy.

This would be the State Fair of Texas, held annually since 1886, the largest state fair in the US, by attendance. Home of Big Tex and the Cotton Bowl and Fletcher's Corney Dogs. We drove to Dallas and left the car at the home of Mrs. Burns, mother of my new sister-in-law, and rode the trolley to the fairgrounds (a grand adventure in itself). I have been to the fair many times since, but most of the memories of those trips have blurred. I remember clearly, even in my dotage, that day with my father.

My father did not know that the 2nd Monday of the Fair, the day we attended, was Negro Appreciation Day.  This was in the '50s, in the South and desegregation was very much part of the fabric of the times. One day and one day only was set aside for "the coloreds," so there we were, two white faces in a sea of more than 100,000 visitors of a darker hue. I had a wonderful time.

I didn't ride a single ride - whites were not allowed on any of the rides. I learned this when I was turned away. Sort of discriminated against, you might say. I remember the experience to this day, so I think it was a lesson well learned.

So we went to all the exhibits; the Auto Show, the Agricultural Building (where I saw Bordon's Elsie the cow), the Reddy Kilowatt Electric show, the Hall of State, the Pan American Pavilion, The Centennial Building,  the Livestock barns, the Women's Exhibits (free food), The Natural Sciences building, and of course the Midway, where I learned valuable lessons about games of chance, sampled State Fair Saltwater Taffy, and ate my fill of Corney Dogs.

We toured the Aquarium,  which is on the fairgrounds. I remember a smallish turtle in a very big tank, that would get a gulp of air and swim to the bottom to feed, only to have to go right back up for another breath of air and start all over again. I also remember seeing electric eels brush against metal rods and power up some type of light.

We went to the Ice Capades; my father loved the graceful skaters, I was awed by the spectacle of the show itself.

And we saw a brand new exhibit that had been imported from Germany and was appearing for the first time in the US - The Dancing Waters. Miles of pipe, dozens of nozzles and hundreds of lights, all mixed together in what was probably a pretty small pool. One man played an organ and another man worked the valves and an incredible display of music, water and light resulted. Neither of us had ever seen anything so spectacular.  We saw the show three times. Many years later, I sat on the balcony of my hotel room at Disneyland and watched an automated version of the Dancing Waters that was probably 5 times as large, with water jetting a hundred feet in the air and grand music booming from the speakers.

It didn't hold a candle to what we saw that afternoon in a dark tent at the State Fair, on Negro Appreciation Day.

Now times are altered: if I care
To buy a thing, I can;
The pence are here and here's the fair,
But where's the lost young man?