Fair Opens Early to the Young Crowd

School’s out, but the fair’s in, and that’s where flocks of youngsters went Thursday, the earliest the Orange County Fair has ever opened its run.

While mom or dad or both were at work, the kids took over the fairgrounds to eat, pet lambs and calves, gawk at touring entertainers and climb aboard the gut-wrenching rides on the midway.

Last year, the fair opened on a Thursday, a day earlier than usual, but fair managers hedged their bet by rolling back the gates at 5 p.m., when the adults typically arrive.

This year, the gates opened at 10 a.m., and the result was a morning and afternoon dominated by children.

Only minutes after the gates opened, Judy Brainard of Anaheim was at the game and competition sign-up table entering her children--Monica, Angel, David and Heather.

And Matthew, Mellisa and Aaron.

And Nathan, Deborah and Samuel. (Monica is 20, Samuel is 1.)

And the six friends who came with them--two vans full.

“I’m going to drop them off at their contests, and I’m going to enjoy the fair,” she said. “All the older ones have a younger one assigned to them.”

This, she said, is heaven for her children, who this year plan to attend each of the fair’s 11 days. Besides competing in the doughnut-eating contest, the cow-milking contest, the shoot-out against the plywood outlaw and other games, the kids have floral and ceramic and woodworking entries, some of them ribbon-winners, Brainard said.

At the other side of the grounds, Theresa Drost of Fountain Valley was wheeling her grandchildren, Ashleigh, 3, and Kyle, 2, in what looked like a milk-bottle crate on bicycle wheels. (Sarah, 7 1/2, had to walk.)

They were headed toward the livestock pens, still the most popular attraction at this urban fair. “We catch all of them,” she explained. “They live in Orange Park Acres, and they have a horse and dogs and chickens and a father to raise,” Drost said. “My granddaughter entered her goat.”

What the early-bird youngsters got to see were a few things that those who come later will miss.

Nyle Larson of Victoria, Tex., was standing blond, brown and bare-chested at the topmost point of the Zyklon roller-coaster, installing lights. There was no grab rail, no safety net--nothing between him and the ground but his sense of balance. No fear of heights, apparently.

“I am afraid of heights,” Larson said. “That’s why I’m so good.”

Over at what the fair shamelessly calls “Cow-a-Bunga Beach” (this year’s theme is “We’re Beefing It Up!” Get it?), a 12-foot sand castle was in the first stages of construction.

Like the beach, the sand castle didn’t look like what you’d expect. The beach was only coarse sand dumped onto the flat surface of a livestock ring with small plywood waves installed at one end. The castle, just sand poured into wooden forms, looked more like a wedding cake still in its cake pans.

Wait until the weekend, said Kent Trollen of Newport Beach, who was supervising the sand castle construction. Once the sodden sand sets a bit, the forms will come off and the sculpting will begin. The work will be slow, “because people like to watch us work,” Trollen explained.

The castle will be 90% completed on Sunday, but work then will commence on the surrounding sand village.

The fair will open at 10 a.m. and close at midnight each day through July 17 and has a list of activities so long it fills a 128-page program. The program is free after admission, which is $4 for adults, $2 for children 6 through 12 and nothing for children 5 and under. Parking costs $2, although buses, which carry a lot of paying customers, park for free.

Further information is available by telephoning the fair office at (714) 751-3247.