Fair thee well

ANDREW GLAZER

FAIRGROUNDS -- Stuffed Kermit the Frogs hung like clusters of green

grapes on a vine.

Posing for camera crews, safety inspectors leaned on thrill rides,

smiling and pointing their thumbs to the sky.

The Red Hot Billy Peppers, wearing brightly colored boxer shorts and

Hawaiian shirts, blew “Louie Louie” from their brass horns.

It’s the calm before the 108th annual Orange County Fair, which runs

from today until July 30.

“When you order millions of supplies, there’s always one that gets

here late” said Fair General Manager Becky Bailey-Findley. “It’s like

putting a puzzle together.”

Less than 20 hours before the fair’s gates open, carnival staff sped

around on golf carts, vendors perfected their displays and flocks of

blond-haired children gathered for photo opportunities and then ran

around the grounds.

Bumper boats were dry-docked. Basketballs and softballs for Midway

games were in boxes. Rides remained rigid.

Inside the vendors’ tent, tchotchke salesmen buzzed about.

Sallie and Kenneth Dunlap from Corsseana, Tex. -- “the country’s

Fruitcake Capital” -- hung magnets, witty ceramic plaques and brass

ornaments in their 8-foot by 20-foot booth.

“We have to cram everything in,” said an earnest Sallie Dunlap, 54.

“Sometimes it doesn’t all fit.”

The couple, like many other vendors, have no permanent shop for their

wares. Instead they travel from fair to fair.

“You only have to work 80 days a year,” said Gordie Schantz, 69, a

belt salesman from San Diego. “And I’ve really got the setting up part

down pat.”

In fact, Schantz only began setting up his stand, Gordie’s Goodies, at

8 a.m. Thursday. He said he would be finished by 2 p.m.

Even the fair’s largest structure, the 46-foot-high Millennium Barn,

is ready for visitors. A construction crew began building the barn almost

four months ago.

“Finished is relative,” Bailey-Findley said. “But it will definitely

be open.”