fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Make for the midway: 2019 guide to county fairs in the Hudson Valley

by John Burdick
August 20, 2019
in Community
0
Make for the midway: 2019 guide to county fairs in the Hudson Valley

Racing pigs at the Ulster County Fair. (Photo by Will Dendis)

Racing pigs at the Ulster County Fair. (Photo by Will Dendis)

False, roving cities of the night: A good county fair should not want for a hint of menace, for a bit of the unsavory and the sense that the whole two-bit illusion serves as cover for those “wanted” elsewhere. They say that at Disney World, you never see a door marked “Staff Only,” nor a man carrying a mop and bucket with a walkie-talkie on his hip emerging from it. All sightlines are composed. At a good county fair, you catch those sordid peeks behind the flimsy illusion with a frequency that should be at least a little discomfiting.

And if families of motorcyclists flipping around inside an orbital cage while a sh*t-kicking country/rock band sings about the flag and what it’s gonna do to you, while somewhere a distorted audio loop keeps saying something about “the world’s biggest rat” as you stumble into what sure seems to be an authentic, unregulated knife-throwing exhibition, make you nervous, imagine now how many of your neighbors feel at O+. But county fairs are for everyone: everyone who dares believe in our commonality, our blood ties to livestock and the Earth and in the high ritualistic value of pure diversion and unhealthy fats as your great-grandparents enjoyed them.

The Orange County Fair in Middletown – so close to Alto Music that I can smell the guitars – kicks off the fair season locally between July 18 and 28. It features, among other bar-rising diversions, pig races and extreme jousting. My own childhood fair, the tidy Ulster County Fair, takes over the County Fairgrounds in New Paltz from July 30 through August 4, with live music each night including country/rock stars like Little Texas and rock royalty like Fran Cosmo, formerly of Boston.

The Grahamsville Fair in Neversink calls itself the “Little World’s Fair,” and claims to be, in its 140th year, the oldest independent fair in New York. I believe it, and I love the focus on the traditional, substantive fair fare: emphasis on livestock, agriculture, practical demonstrations and temperate fun as Carrie A. Nation envisaged it. It runs from August 16 through 18.

A cow at the Dutchess County Fair (photo by Dion Ogust)

Everyone knows that the Dutchess County Fair (August 20-25) is a different kind of animal, where the meats are grass-fed and the dunking-booth clown issues barbs as pointed as Rabelais (to whom he actually may be related). It’s a prim affair more attuned to the estates, mansions and boutique farms of northern Dutchess. But it is everyone’s fair, too, and the food simply cannot be beat.

Fair season flows north, and the Columbia County Fair in Chatham takes up the mantle from August 28 through September 2. Pumping up the volume that reminds us of our endangered freedoms, Columbia is big on the gas sports: demolition derby, monster tractors, truck-pulling.

The websites are as rustic as the fairgrounds themselves, and about as slick as the midways. But the early-’90s webcraft just adds to the charm, and all the info is there.

Orange County Fair
July 18–28
www.orangecountyfair.com

Ulster County Fair
July 30–August 4
www.ulstercountyfair.com

Grahamsville Little World’s Fair
August 16-18
www.grahamsvillefair.com

Dutchess County Fair
August 20–25
www.dutchessfair.com

Columbia County Fair
August 28–September 2
www.columbiafair.com

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Musical version of The Secret Garden opens in Rhinebeck

Next Post

Opus 40 hosts Cirkus Luna & Makbet

John Burdick

Related Posts

New ideas for Woodstock Library
Community

Library for sale: desirable central Woodstock location available

September 27, 2023
Elting Library Fair honors Sally Rhoads and Carol Roper
Community

Woodstock Library plans a spatial transition

September 27, 2023
Lights On, pickleball, food trucks and other news from Saugerties
Community

Saugerties recreation facilities improved

September 27, 2023
Gardiner Day returns to Majestic Park September 30
Community

Gardiner Day returns to Majestic Park September 30

September 26, 2023
Highland Open Studio Tour this weekend
Art & Music

Highland Open Studio Tour this weekend

September 26, 2023
Dog owners ask the town for more support at the Ulster County Dog Park
Community

Dog owners ask the town for more support at the Ulster County Dog Park

September 27, 2023
Next Post
Site-specific production of Makbet at Opus 40

Opus 40 hosts Cirkus Luna & Makbet

Trending News

  • Miller Middle School approves deployment of resource officer for 2023-24 school year 1.4k views
  • Dog owners ask the town for more support at the Ulster County Dog Park 1.1k views
  • Famous hairstylist taking appointments at mini-festival in Kingston this weekend 1.1k views
  • Legendary rock royalty performs in Woodstock this weekend 665 views
  • Gilberto Nunez, Kingston dentist acquitted of murder but convicted on other charges, set loose 592 views
  • In New Paltz, a plant store, a massage provider, and a tattooist open a store together 568 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
46°
Cloudy
6:49 am6:43 pm EDT
Feels like: 46°F
Wind: 2mph N
Humidity: 98%
Pressure: 30.33"Hg
UV index: 0
FriSatSun
59/54°F
70/52°F
75/55°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing