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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
FAIR 8/18/2013 1:53:30 PM
The year was 1954, and my oldest daughter was born that August 15. By now I was a burgeoning star on local broadcasting. I was given, gratis, a pair of admission tickets to the New York State Fair. (Retail value: $19.90 + taxes. Not bad, eh?)
Tell you what, I told my recuperating ex-wife, we will get a bed-and-breakfast room near the fairgrounds, leave the kids with your mother, and make a weekend of it — I never been to the State Fair! — and the tickets were free!
But, said my ex-wife, I’m still sore!
So . . . ?
Off we went in early September; the bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Syracuse was overpriced but still cheaper than a hotel (by at least $7.22 a night), and we drove my ancient Chevy coupe (1947) on the brand new Thruway for forty cents. That’s right — 40˘!
The New York State Fair was all and more than I expected: we did everything from ride the Ferris wheel to attend all the freak shows. We saw the 2-Headed Lady, the Half-Goat-Half-Man kid, and the Geek (yes, Virginia, there were Geeks even before there was Microsoft) who ate a whole chicken live, feathers and all — while my ex-wife begged me for one of the giant stuffed Pandas, obtained by ringing a bell with a pellet up a positioned track with a sledgehammer, a tool I could barely lift.
And I dont want that glass Liberty Bell bank, she told me; it has a crack in it!
You can do it! my ex-wife said, but it was still too painful. Despite a roomful of doctors when I got home — and even a chiropractor!— my back was never the same again, ruined from that day forward.
Do not be silly, I replied, a hero to the end; I tried three times anyway (for 30˘ each), but the best I could do was win her a ratty teddy bear. I think she was too embarrassed to carry it into the livestock exhibitions; we saw nary a one.
She complained so strongly (mainly about the teddy bear) we only stayed one night at the bed-and-breakfast. The next day, a gorgeous late summer day in Western New York, we headed for home.
The New York State Thruway was truly the 8th Wonder of the World — and, thanks to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, it would be all paid for by 1970! The distance between Rochester and Syracuse could be covered in an hour! (Dewey lost the presidential election to Harry Truman and the cost of the Thruway Rochester to NYC is now something like $5,268.47.)
Somewhere near the Montezuma Wild Life Refuge, my ex-wife fell sleep, her head in my lap. Look at those birds! I said aloud, but she was out. There must be a million of them! Look at the way they swoop and fly in clusters! Like giant clouds of birds! Look at the way they swoop and dive! Just like they know what they are doing! Like giant clouds on the wing! Like dive-bombers! LIKE — LIKE — THEY ARE DIVING RIGHT AT US! LIKE THEY DO NOT EVEN SEE US! LIKE — LIKE — JESUS, THEY ARE COMING RIGHT AT US! LIKE — LIKE . . .!
At 60 miles-per-hour on the New York State Thruway, we ploughed into a million birds, birds of various species — from wrens to pigeons — and with a death wish that possessed them to attack my car, their sudden and unexpected maneuver resulted in a mass slaughter!
Birds crashed through the windshield and side vents, spraying shards of glass and bird-parts — wings, legs, beaks, gore — everywhere! My ex-wife sat bolt upright, spewing feathers and chunks of windshield glass…What the f*** is going on! she screamed.
A host of birds was impaled on the antenna outside the car! Feathers and assorted gore were found in the grille, as well as in the front and back seats!
By the time I had pulled off the road and stopped and looked back up the road at least a quarter mile, as far as they eye could see, there was a path of dead and flopping birds — approximately a thousand brainless bird-brains had met their demise by crashing head-on into my speeding and unsuspecting vehicle!
Later that night I regaled David L. Roberts, Ken Powell, Jolly Joe Wilson, and my usual entourage with tales of our State Fair adventure, while the lot of us dined at the Big 25, a fast-food restaurant not far from the TV studio. The Big 25 was an eatery that boasted a three hundred foot bar and sold draft beer for 10˘; you could get a burgher or BLT for a quarter. Big spenders, we often dined there.
You would not believe it! I told them. A trillion birds on the Thruway attacked us! I literally wiped out at least SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND and then drove all the way home with no windshield!
Interesting, Roberts said, completely bored. I want you meet my friend Mary Posey. She works over at Channel 10.
I looked into Posey’s moist and limpid eyes, forgot all about the hapless birds and the new baby daughter at home — I fell madly in love.
Sadly, Posey and I never became an item and remained good buddies for years. Even after her marriage to my friend Tom Kennedy and living in Spain as an ex-patriot, while hunting for her misdirected daughter who was kidnapped by Rev. Moon’s cult (another story for another time), I often think about the night Posey and I got drunk — about what might have been but never was — sitting and drinking vodka on the girders of the cold, unfinished War Memorial in Rochester.
But I, like so many at that time, was madly in love with Mary Posey.
Of course, my marriage to the mother of the daughter born that August was long over, despite the fact we had destroyed a zillion birds together while returning from the New York State Fair.
The only good thing to come out it all was the birth of a truly great kid, Barbara Brett Mills, on August 15, 1954.
The year was 1954, and my oldest daughter was born that August 15. By now I was a burgeoning star on local broadcasting. I was given, gratis, a pair of admission tickets to the New York State Fair. (Retail value: $19.90 + taxes. Not bad, eh?)
Tell you what, I told my recuperating ex-wife, we will get a bed-and-breakfast room near the fairgrounds, leave the kids with your mother, and make a weekend of it — I never been to the State Fair! — and the tickets were free!
But, said my ex-wife, I’m still sore!
So . . . ?
Off we went in early September; the bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Syracuse was overpriced but still cheaper than a hotel (by at least $7.22 a night), and we drove my ancient Chevy coupe (1947) on the brand new Thruway for forty cents. That’s right — 40˘!
The New York State Fair was all and more than I expected: we did everything from ride the Ferris wheel to attend all the freak shows. We saw the 2-Headed Lady, the Half-Goat-Half-Man kid, and the Geek (yes, Virginia, there were Geeks even before there was Microsoft) who ate a whole chicken live, feathers and all — while my ex-wife begged me for one of the giant stuffed Pandas, obtained by ringing a bell with a pellet up a positioned track with a sledgehammer, a tool I could barely lift.
And I dont want that glass Liberty Bell bank, she told me; it has a crack in it!
You can do it! my ex-wife said, but it was still too painful. Despite a roomful of doctors when I got home — and even a chiropractor!— my back was never the same again, ruined from that day forward.
Do not be silly, I replied, a hero to the end; I tried three times anyway (for 30˘ each), but the best I could do was win her a ratty teddy bear. I think she was too embarrassed to carry it into the livestock exhibitions; we saw nary a one.
She complained so strongly (mainly about the teddy bear) we only stayed one night at the bed-and-breakfast. The next day, a gorgeous late summer day in Western New York, we headed for home.
The New York State Thruway was truly the 8th Wonder of the World — and, thanks to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, it would be all paid for by 1970! The distance between Rochester and Syracuse could be covered in an hour! (Dewey lost the presidential election to Harry Truman and the cost of the Thruway Rochester to NYC is now something like $5,268.47.)
Somewhere near the Montezuma Wild Life Refuge, my ex-wife fell sleep, her head in my lap. Look at those birds! I said aloud, but she was out. There must be a million of them! Look at the way they swoop and fly in clusters! Like giant clouds of birds! Look at the way they swoop and dive! Just like they know what they are doing! Like giant clouds on the wing! Like dive-bombers! LIKE — LIKE — THEY ARE DIVING RIGHT AT US! LIKE THEY DO NOT EVEN SEE US! LIKE — LIKE — JESUS, THEY ARE COMING RIGHT AT US! LIKE — LIKE . . .!
At 60 miles-per-hour on the New York State Thruway, we ploughed into a million birds, birds of various species — from wrens to pigeons — and with a death wish that possessed them to attack my car, their sudden and unexpected maneuver resulted in a mass slaughter!
Birds crashed through the windshield and side vents, spraying shards of glass and bird-parts — wings, legs, beaks, gore — everywhere! My ex-wife sat bolt upright, spewing feathers and chunks of windshield glass…What the f*** is going on! she screamed.
A host of birds was impaled on the antenna outside the car! Feathers and assorted gore were found in the grille, as well as in the front and back seats!
By the time I had pulled off the road and stopped and looked back up the road at least a quarter mile, as far as they eye could see, there was a path of dead and flopping birds — approximately a thousand brainless bird-brains had met their demise by crashing head-on into my speeding and unsuspecting vehicle!
Later that night I regaled David L. Roberts, Ken Powell, Jolly Joe Wilson, and my usual entourage with tales of our State Fair adventure, while the lot of us dined at the Big 25, a fast-food restaurant not far from the TV studio. The Big 25 was an eatery that boasted a three hundred foot bar and sold draft beer for 10˘; you could get a burgher or BLT for a quarter. Big spenders, we often dined there.
You would not believe it! I told them. A trillion birds on the Thruway attacked us! I literally wiped out at least SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND and then drove all the way home with no windshield!
Interesting, Roberts said, completely bored. I want you meet my friend Mary Posey. She works over at Channel 10.
I looked into Posey’s moist and limpid eyes, forgot all about the hapless birds and the new baby daughter at home — I fell madly in love.
Sadly, Posey and I never became an item and remained good buddies for years. Even after her marriage to my friend Tom Kennedy and living in Spain as an ex-patriot, while hunting for her misdirected daughter who was kidnapped by Rev. Moon’s cult (another story for another time), I often think about the night Posey and I got drunk — about what might have been but never was — sitting and drinking vodka on the girders of the cold, unfinished War Memorial in Rochester.
But I, like so many at that time, was madly in love with Mary Posey.
Of course, my marriage to the mother of the daughter born that August was long over, despite the fact we had destroyed a zillion birds together while returning from the New York State Fair.
The only good thing to come out it all was the birth of a truly great kid, Barbara Brett Mills, on August 15, 1954.
