Today I achieved a personal best for length of stay at a Fall fair: Seven hours.
The Deerfield Fair in Deerfield, New Hampshire, is a 142-year-old tradition. And it’s a large fair. There is a theory—just a theory, mind you, but reasonably evidenced—that if you attend this fair, you’ll automatically hit your Fall quota and can start celebrating the Christmas Season.
I wrote about this fair during the very first OTIS Halloween Season back in 2010, back when the fair was a spry 132 years old. Reading over
that old piece, I don’t really have anything to add to it. Although I do cringe at how far I’d contort myself for a joke-aside back then.
The reason I was at the Deerfield Fair for almost an entire work day didn’t have anything to do with the fact that there are easily seven hours’ worth of things to do there. It was because my daughter was riding in its horse show, so we had to get there early and there was a lot of prep time. All of that chokes me up a bit because on that first trip to the Deerfield Fair eight years ago, she was only 10 months old and I mentioned in that post that we visited the horse ring with her. Little did I know. Little do I ever know.
My favorite thing at the fair this year (and probably my favorite thing in the entire world) was the giant pumpkin display. This year, I got to witness a record-breaking Great Pumpkin. At 2,528 pounds, this beast-gourd is the largest pumpkin ever recorded in the United States. And it was grown on good old New Hampshire soil, like my kids.
Apparently, the world record holder is 2,624 pounds, and that was set in 2016 in Belgium. No way was the Belgium Great Pumpkin displayed amid such ambiance as the U.S. record holder, behind a birchwood fence in an agriculture building at a Fall fair that’s almost a century and a half old. Actually, I have no clue how they do it in Belgium. Honestly, if they can grow orange spheres that big, they can pretty much do anything. I think that’s how it goes.
Naturally, I was pretty beat up on returning home. So we relaxed, eventually capping our night off with
Hold the Dark on Netflix. It’s not a Halloween film, but it is a new Jeremy Saulnier film. And when a new Jeremy Saulnier film comes out, we watch that film as soon as possible. I'd give you a review, but I'm still thinking about the movie (in a good way).
I might as well mention here that Saulnier’s first feature film was a Halloween one, the 2007 Murder Party. It’s a comedy-horror that’s a lot of fun to watch and way worth putting on this season.
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| I don't know how this guy only got third place. |
