A taste of the fair is always appetizing

Consider if you will the culinary art form known far and wide in this great land of ours as the funnel cake — that steaming pile of pancake batter deep fried to a golden brown and covered with powdered sugar.
And maybe a sprinkle of cinnamon in this day and age.
The funnel cake, for me, bespeaks of the Permian Basin Fair & Exposition more than any other single item.
It beats out heifers and steers and lambs, oh my.
The fried spiral of goodness — and probably eventual death if I bothered to ask a cardiologist — is more fair fare for me than the carnival midway, the other food vendors or the booths offering other items for sale.
I’ve been going to the fair for as long as I can remember. And I always have a good time. And I always seem to have a bite or two of funnel cake, though my appetite for the thing has changed over the years from having to have one all to myself to being satisfied with sneaking a bite or three from my daughter’s plate.
I’d like to claim moderation, but it’s really just that I’m usually already full from the roasted ear of corn and the pork-ka-bob.
I’ve already been to the fair this year. I may go again be-fore it’s all said and done.
The fair is that much fun for me.
The fair is about family time, so there’s always a warm fuzzy feeling for me in feeling the warm fuzzy animals in the petting zoo and the livestock shows.
In my mind, the fair is an abiding marker in the passage of time. Each fall we come to this marker, and we take stock — no pun intended — of creative arts contests and a plethora of other fun things.
Of course, that’s not to say the fair hasn’t changed over the years. The fair’s website said this is the fair’s 34th year. I’d wager that I was at the first one.
I know that because one of my sisters showed lambs all through high school and the timelines converge nicely to have put me at the first fair. Of course, I don’t have the same perspective of someone who has been on the fair board for all that time because I was out of town for about 15 years.
Now that I’ve been back in town for more than seven years and have been to the fair each of those years, maybe I notice the differences more. Like white tigers.
Maybe it’s just that I’m old and nostalgic for the old days.
Take, for instance, the Tilt-A-Whirl. Someone has. I couldn’t find in on the midway the other night, though some-thing called the Eclipse looked like a modernized version.
I remember a carousel and now they strap you into a hu-man slingshot and send you skyward. It looks scary enough to leave Hannibal Lecter weeping.
I’ll pass on that, but please don’t forget to pass the funnel cake my way.