A Rat's Paradise
"I'm staying right here," grumbled the rat. "I haven't the slightest interest in fairs."
"That's because you've never been to one," remarked the old sheep. "A fair is a rat's paradise. Everybody spills food at a fair. A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribbling, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones . . . why, a fair has enough disgusting leftover food to feed a whole army of rats."
I assure you I do not eat leftovers at the North Dakota State Fair which began this past Friday and continues through this Saturday, but this passage from E.B. White's full color edition of Charlotte's Web (ISBN 9780064410939, pictures by Garth Williams) came to mind. The old sheep's speaking to the rat named Templeton who among him, Charlotte the spider of the title, other animals on Zuckerman's farm, and I expect Wilbur the pig conspire to keep him from being killed and eaten. And they succeed quite well at it, in this story I hadn't read since I was a kid (and I saw the animated special based on the 1952 book before that -- it's got way more pathos, and the book is more of a "circle of life" after Charlotte ... I'm not going to tell you, read the book!) and at forty-five
is still a lot of quiet fun. As I write this post Martha and the kids are selecting photos she took of them high up on one of the rides to send to her sister and their aunt Mary out of town right now. I am glad on the third consecutive day of the State Fair we didn't have to stay long ... I must confess that after coming home from church I didn't want to go back, but we were only there about an hour. Friday and Saturday make up not only the first time I've been to the State Fair on opening day but also the time I fell for a carnival barker appealing to my "Dad (n.) superhero" T-shirt and ending up paying most of my money for popping balloons and earning Martha, Sarah, and Jeffrey stuffed animals.
But I promised I wouldn't dwell on that. Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I all have season passes and the kids have all-ride passes and they're pretty reasonable. I got my flowering onion (think blooming onion from Outback), Martha got her fried cheese curds, the kids have had a lot of rides, and until Saturday -- typically the State Fair's busiest day -- we didn't meet the rest of the local family. And I've even acquired small sunburns around my neck and facial cheeks from watching the State Fair Parade, which due to road construction this year passed the end of the block in front of my in-laws' house.
Of the 210 or so floats that passed by, it was one of the co-announcers' comments that caught my attention, history geek that I am, when the VFW float passed by. (Trivia: The Veterans of Foreign Wars organization was founded in 1898, and the American Legion in 1919.) Anyway, he said that the VFW was founded after the Spanish-American War AND the Philippine Insurrection. And as I write this I realize only the first party is true. The Spanish-American War you hear about in school.
The Philippine Insurrection, not so much. After the aforementioned war which freed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spanish rule, the native Filipinos did not like the United States or anyone else becoming their new colonial masters, and so began a three-year resistance movement in that country which was put down. Very forcefully and painfully.
Not exactly our finest hour, with the occasional ethnic cleansing there and a public opinion as divided here as it debatably is now. Yes, the Philippines was on the map, part and parcel of the United States of America, until 1946.
And I've gotten through my third week at Trinity Health and I'm really liking it. So one floor of the hospital got overstocked and one will probably be looking for them ... but I'm learning.
"I'm really too young to go out into the world alone," he thought as he lay down.
Wilbur, I so relate.
David
"That's because you've never been to one," remarked the old sheep. "A fair is a rat's paradise. Everybody spills food at a fair. A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribbling, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones . . . why, a fair has enough disgusting leftover food to feed a whole army of rats."
I assure you I do not eat leftovers at the North Dakota State Fair which began this past Friday and continues through this Saturday, but this passage from E.B. White's full color edition of Charlotte's Web (ISBN 9780064410939, pictures by Garth Williams) came to mind. The old sheep's speaking to the rat named Templeton who among him, Charlotte the spider of the title, other animals on Zuckerman's farm, and I expect Wilbur the pig conspire to keep him from being killed and eaten. And they succeed quite well at it, in this story I hadn't read since I was a kid (and I saw the animated special based on the 1952 book before that -- it's got way more pathos, and the book is more of a "circle of life" after Charlotte ... I'm not going to tell you, read the book!) and at forty-five
is still a lot of quiet fun. As I write this post Martha and the kids are selecting photos she took of them high up on one of the rides to send to her sister and their aunt Mary out of town right now. I am glad on the third consecutive day of the State Fair we didn't have to stay long ... I must confess that after coming home from church I didn't want to go back, but we were only there about an hour. Friday and Saturday make up not only the first time I've been to the State Fair on opening day but also the time I fell for a carnival barker appealing to my "Dad (n.) superhero" T-shirt and ending up paying most of my money for popping balloons and earning Martha, Sarah, and Jeffrey stuffed animals.
But I promised I wouldn't dwell on that. Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I all have season passes and the kids have all-ride passes and they're pretty reasonable. I got my flowering onion (think blooming onion from Outback), Martha got her fried cheese curds, the kids have had a lot of rides, and until Saturday -- typically the State Fair's busiest day -- we didn't meet the rest of the local family. And I've even acquired small sunburns around my neck and facial cheeks from watching the State Fair Parade, which due to road construction this year passed the end of the block in front of my in-laws' house.
Of the 210 or so floats that passed by, it was one of the co-announcers' comments that caught my attention, history geek that I am, when the VFW float passed by. (Trivia: The Veterans of Foreign Wars organization was founded in 1898, and the American Legion in 1919.) Anyway, he said that the VFW was founded after the Spanish-American War AND the Philippine Insurrection. And as I write this I realize only the first party is true. The Spanish-American War you hear about in school.
The Philippine Insurrection, not so much. After the aforementioned war which freed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spanish rule, the native Filipinos did not like the United States or anyone else becoming their new colonial masters, and so began a three-year resistance movement in that country which was put down. Very forcefully and painfully.
Not exactly our finest hour, with the occasional ethnic cleansing there and a public opinion as divided here as it debatably is now. Yes, the Philippines was on the map, part and parcel of the United States of America, until 1946.
And I've gotten through my third week at Trinity Health and I'm really liking it. So one floor of the hospital got overstocked and one will probably be looking for them ... but I'm learning.
"I'm really too young to go out into the world alone," he thought as he lay down.
Wilbur, I so relate.
David
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