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at the fair

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

We attended the Thanksgiving "festival" at Balls Falls. Apparently it attracts some 20,000 people every year. It had what was probably the largest collection of vendor stalls I've ever seen. To park the car for the event, we had to follow a temporary road into an enormous field where volunteers had us park in rows. The Girl's favorite thing wasn't the waterfall or the fully operational flour mill operating next to that, but: the bouncy castle.

One thing I noticed - it was such a white crowd. The day before, we'd been at the outlet mall in NOTL, just north east of St. Catharines. I remarked to Mari on the numbers of "North" Asians present, then realized that there were lots of West Asians as well. After puzzling on that for a moment it finally dawned on me that this was the result of the city having placed that outlet mall next to the QEW, the highway that connects Toronto & Hamilton to Niagara Falls and the US. So of course the Thanksgiving festival was a more local crowd.

P.S. And how can I not think of The Breeders at a time like this.