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Sin And The County Fair

The Source

It was my grandpa who started me down the wicked path of my current life of sin. He was a gambler and I happily took up the family mantle. To some folks the county fair is a time for riding the Tilt-A-Whirl, munching grease-laden Cozy Dogs and looking at the tight jeans on female Angus trainers, but when we went to the fair with Grandpa, he’d rush us right past the heady delights of cotton candy and girlie shows, steering us right to the grandstand at the harness races. If the fair featured five days of trotters and pacers then Grandpa would be there all five days, 2 p.m. sharp, and there began the sordid tale of his driving his grandson into the wicked grasp of gambling. He’d formed a gambling syndicate consisting of Uncle Bob who couldn’t hear, a guy named Poodle without teeth, my brother and I, plus whatever old friends he’d see sitting in the bleachers. We’d all sit together on the south side of the track and as the horses would do their pre-race parade, we’d place our bets. If you wanted into Grandpa’s syndicate it took serious money. The lowest you could bet would be five cents and the maximum was a nickel. You’d name your horse, toss your five pennies into Bob’s hat, and prayed to make a killing when the winner crossed the finish line and you’d take out your twenty-five cents. It was tension of the highest order. Of course Keith and I didn’t take any huge chances since Grandpa was providing us with nickels. The mobile starting gate consisted of a white Buick convertible with a series of steel uprights swinging wildly from each rear fender. The car would go zipping by the grandstand with perhaps 7 or 8 sweating horses and surreys following, then the Buick would suddenly speed up and get out of the way. The race was on. The loudspeaker system at the Western Illinois Fair was just one step up from a string and tin cans. Although the track announcer did his best to announce the race’s progress, no one ever understood a thing the guy said in the thirty-some years he called the races. My brother and I were too short to actually see the other side of the racetrack so we had to rely upon either Bob who couldn’t hear, Poodle who we couldn’t understand, or Grandpa who constantly lied to us. Life is tough when you’re too short to see and you have a whole nickel riding upon the outcome. The trick of course is to pick the right horse. Grandpa picked his horses by how they held themselves on the trot-by, Poodle judged them by their gate, Bob studied their pedigree in the racing program, but I took the more scientific method and picked my hoped-for winners by the color of the jockey’s silt shirt. Real winners, or so I reckoned, didn’t wear red. Too flashly. They were trying to hide the horse’s defects. Bright blue was also to be avoided. Purple seemed extravagant and probably meant it was a foreign horse from some exotic destination like Missouri. Instead I leaned toward the browns and yellows. …something subtle. I could envision a jockey waking in the morning and saying to himself, “You know, I’ve got a pretty fast horse. If I want to up the odds against his winning I think I’ll wear a muted color that no one will notice.” The horses would zip across the finish line and Grandpa would always shout, “I won!” Grandpa always lied about what horse he’d picked. Bob would always say, “Who won? I couldn’t hear!” And Poodle would invariably scream out, “ &(#$%!” At least I think it was, “ &(#$%!” When you don’t have teeth all your curse words sound pretty much the same. All I remember is that the profanities beginning with an “f” caused him to slobber down the front of his overalls. But although Grandpa, Bob and Poodle would try mightily to cheat each other, they were kind when it came to my brother and I, and if our horse actually won we were allowed to grab the contents of Bob’s hat. On a really good day I’d win enough to buy a hamburger on our way back to the car. If I’d lost then Grandpa would buy the hamburgers. All of which led me to my current life of debauchery in the gambling world. I wish I was young enough to change my ways, but alas, I fear that the die (and dice) have been cast. As a teacher I trusted the state legislature to fund education, I foolishly believed the Teachers Retirement System when they told me the money I was paying in would be there when I left the classroom, I bought a Honda, I voted Democratic, and I attend a Methodist church… all gambles that have caused me to end up in the condition I find myself today. Face it, life is a crapshoot.