Muggy Heat Marks the 50th Valley Fair

Muggy heat contributed to low attendance at the San Fernando Valley Fair on Saturday afternoon, with rides operating at about 25% capacity, but vendors said they expected activity to pick up by evening as it had Friday night.

The humid air, subdued music, smells of outdoor cooking, and measured movement of visitors and animals alike gave the fair at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center all the feeling of a hot Iowa afternoon.

Those who paid the required 50 cents to see Harley the Giant Hog found him lying motionless in the shade, taking a siesta as cool water misted over his 1,000-pound bulk.

Bernie Burns, billed as a comedy harmonica artist, began his second of three performances at 2:30 p.m. in front of 20 people in bleachers built to hold at least eight times that number.

Warm weather and competition from Olympics coverage may have kept some people home, but not Judy Van Dam of Burbank, who was attending the fair with her 4-year-old grandson, Matthew.

“They’re having a ball,” said Van Dam of Matthew and his friend, Robert Jones. “It’ll be nice tonight when it’s cool.”

She said she didn’t think the fatal bomb explosion at the Olympics in Atlanta early Saturday was keeping people away.

“That was a sad thing,” she said. “It’s too bad when every place you go seems to be a hazard in some respect.”

Sad events of a more local nature were apparently on the minds of at least some who stopped by the California Highway Patrol booth.

CHP Officer John Sturman, a Valley resident for 20 years, said a number of people had “shared their condolences” and asked for an update on the condition of Officer Rafael “Ralph” Casillas, who was shot and seriously wounded early Wednesday in Granada Hills by a man he was trying to stop for speeding on the San Diego Freeway.

Sturman, who works at the CHP’s Altadena station, said he has backed up Casillas on several occasions. He said the wounding of Casillas and the fatal shooting of CHP Officer Don Burt in Fullerton July 13 were very hard for officers to deal with.

“It has given us heightened awareness of officer safety . . . and our own mortality,” he said. “I hate to say this, but I almost thought about wearing my bullet-proof vest to this event.”

*

Marking its 50th anniversary, the fair concludes its four-day run today from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. with rides, exhibits, games, an animal petting pen, crafts and food.

Activities will include a Hovercraft demonstration, performances by jugglers and magicians, Mariachi music and a bicycle and roller-blade thrill show.

A round of Kowchip Bingo, spelled with a “K” like its sponsor, the Kiwanis Clubs of Northridge and Van Nuys, will begin around 6 p.m. During the fair, Kiwanis members have been selling, at $5 each, 3-foot-square plots of the ground inside the center’s Equidome, a covered horse arena.

Tonight, five cows will be released into the Equidome. The first person whose “plot is plopped” will win $1,000, said Kiwanis member Christy Coats of Northridge. She said proceeds from the event will go to the needy and elderly of the Valley.

General admission to the fair is $6, free to children 11 and younger.