 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Back
|
Fair whirls to life with food, fun and gamesBy JAY CRIDLIN © St. Petersburg Times
TAMPA -- It's 8:45 a.m., and someone has to count the ducks. Fifteen minutes before the gates of the Florida State Fair open to the public Thursday, the task falls to Delores Ehrenberg. Like the other vendors and ride operators at the fair, Ehrenberg is taking a last-minute inventory of her booth. Before the rubber ducks from her pick-up-ducks can be placed in the water, they must be counted and sorted according to the prize on their bellies.
"I'm pulling out all the big ones and making sure there's a good ratio, so the children don't get cheated," Ehrenberg says. Ride operator Jimmy Quinn gives The Inverter a dry run -- literally and figuratively -- before the crowds arrive. Water had collected in the bottom of the ride, so he and another operator spin it upside down to dry it out. Just before 9 a.m., Cynthia Louis races to her booth with her SpongeBob SquarePants costume. "The first day is usually a slower day, but I don't know," Louis says. "With the Bucs winning this year, we may do all right." * * * As always, county officials get first crack at the games. Each year, officials with the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office and the State Attorney's Office tour the grounds before the gates open, making sure the rules are clear and the games are legit. They take measurements, ask questions and dole out praise or criticism. "We're simply asking that the proprietors out here comply with the law," says State Attorney Mark Ober. One perk of the job is that the officials can test each game they inspect, from Whack-A-Mole to basketball. Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi hopped on a backwards-steering bike and nearly toppled over. Ober decides to sit that one out. "I watched other people do it," he says. "I know better than that." * * * "Oh my god!" screams Munjari Pedupudi. "I want my mom!" yells Jenny Allen. At the top of the 1001 Nachts ride, in which a row of seats swings like a pendulum high into the air, Pedupudi, Allen, Arielle Medina and Sarah Alexander are screaming for their lives. "We're all going to die!" The four played with the Ben Hill Middle School band in the morning, and now have the rest of the day to themselves. Their agenda: ride, ride, ride. "Everything around you is like a blur," says Medina after riding the Tango. "You feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz or something." "You feel like you're going to fly out of nowhere, and you look at the floor, and it's like 50 miles up," Pedupudi says. "I feel dizzy, but it was worth every ticket we spent on it." Moments after exiting the Hurricane, the girls dance off to their next conquest. Shouts Pedupudi: "I feel like a rubber chicken!" The presenting sponsor at the fair is the consumer health group HealthExpo, but you wouldn't know it from an inspection of the dining carts. In addition to carnival standards such as corn dogs, funnel cakes and cotton candy, there were various types of food on a stick, including pickles, steak, cheese and bananas. At one tent, Joe Willis served enormous slabs of pork on a stick, in addition to herculean turkey legs and slabs of beef ribs. "People love the turkey leg," he said. "The food's got a texture. It's moist. It's got a good flavor." As always, a top seller is the strawberry shortcake, the fruit coming straight from the patches of nearby Plant City. "I've had people come in already this morning and say they came right back here, because they had them last year and wanted them again this year," said shortcake saleswoman Valerie Norton. David Hensdale raised eyebrows with his menu, which included gator kabobs and shark kabobs. "Shark has a really meaty flavor, sort of like grouper," he said. "Gator has a texture and a flavor of its own." Hensdale also offered an item that's every bit as healthy as it sounds: the deep-fried Twinkie. "Vitamin G' is what we call it," he said. "Grease." Austin Oliver and Nyla Foster are on their hands and knees peering at a pig. "Pigs, some are bigger than others," Nyla says. "Some of them are cute, and some of them are big and fat." "Baby pigs drink milk out of the mommy pig," Austin adds. Austin and Nyla are on a field trip with their class from Folsom Elementary School in Thonotosassa. As they and dozens of other students mill through the livestock buildings, they are able to get up close and personal with pigs, cows, goats and sheep. For Austin, 7, one animal got a little too close. "One of the animals over there, whenever I walk away, it keeps on following me around," he says, pointing to a goat staring directly at him. Children bought cups of food for the animals, but not everyone wanted to put their hands in a pen. "I don't want to pet a cow," Nyla says. "A cow could squish you, and it could pull you in there." By late afternoon Thursday, two rides were getting heavy attention: the Barrel of Fun and the Footsie Wootsie. But they weren't ordinary rides. They were rows of seats with coin-operated foot massagers. The vibrating pedals gave weary walkers a quarter's worth of therapy. "These things help," said Jaye Polk, who had been standing at his game booth all day. Bonnie Ramsey heaved a sigh of relief upon sitting in the chair. "It's a good idea," she said. "It feels real good. It tingles your whole body. Polk knows the value of a good foot massage, having once spent nearly 20 hours on his feet at the South Florida Fair. "By then, my feet were pretty much torn up," he said. "We were visiting them frequently whenever we got a break. Oh yeah."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
Headlines From the Times local news desks |
