Still a Fair Deal

The Orange County Fair might now thump to the beat of hard rock and the shrieks of roller coaster riders, but who thinks the annual event is losing its rustic allure? Not the scads of youngsters peering into the pig pen at Centennial Farm on Sunday.

“They’re so cute,” cooed 4-year-old Austin Bondi, craning his neck for a better view of the snoozing 3-week-old piglets. “I might have to keep one.”

“Keep one?” his mother, Jeanna, of Huntington Beach, replied. “What would [your] bunny think of that?”

Austin’s fascination for the piglets might not please his rabbit, but it certainly makes organizers of this year’s fair happy.

As concrete has replaced the orchards and farms that once dominated the county, fair organizers have added more theme park-style rides and music bands in an attempt to draw younger, more urban crowds. At the same time, they have struggled to keep the event’s harvest and country heritage alive.

If the fair-goers who turned out Sunday for the event’s last day are any measure, the draw of monster melons and bleating goats remains strong.

By Sunday at 9 p.m., 720,540 people had attended the fair, about 2,500 fewer than last year. The fair’s attendance record was set in 1997 when nearly 786,000 attended. Surveys suggest that parents bring their children to the fair because they themselves were taken as children, said Becky Bailey-Findley, the event’s general manager. “There is this intergenerational feel of passing on of culture, passing on of community,” she said.

This year’s event, the 107th, blended the traditional with the modern, and, at the Great Invention Show, the exotic and, at times, wacky. Next to Centennial Farm, budding inventors peddled their creations, offering everything from bibs for commuters who like to eat while driving to elaborate potties for pet dogs, complete with plastic fire hydrant and picket fence.

And then there were the perennial stalls selling everything from Jacuzzis to feather dusters.

“Fairs have become a commercial enterprise,” said Dan Highsmith, who spent Sunday selling women’s hairpieces at his wife’s stall, Illusions in Hair. “It’s like a big mall without walls.”

Highsmith, 57, spends eight months each year traveling the country, bringing his wife’s business from one fair to another. His next trip is to Ventura, then it’s off to Minnesota before heading back to the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona.

It is in California, where city folk arrive at fairs by the hundreds of thousands, that Highsmith can generate the most sales, he said. Illusions in Hair hawks long, thick locks of hair. Wavy or straight. Blond or brown. Whatever you wished you were born with, he said.

“What you sell here,” he said, his voice lowered conspiratorially, “is vanity, if you know what I mean.”

A moment later, Beth Wyatt, pushing her granddaughter’s stroller, bought a $20 baseball hat with blond curls pouring out the back.

The hat will “make me look younger,” Wyatt, 55, said laughing. “I can throw on some makeup and put on my hat, and I can fake everyone.”

Buying a cheap novelty or a giggle--just as much as petting fat sheep and gawking at enormous pumpkins--is what the fair has always been about.

Take, for instance, Elaine Abdul-Jabbaar of Los Angeles, who strolled between booths that offered personality tests for a couple of bucks.

“This one’s accurate to the T,” she said with a chuckle, holding up one computer readout. Passionate, bright, headstrong with expensive tastes, the readout said. Finally equipped with the correct analysis of herself, she strolled off toward the rides.

“It’s just a beautiful day,” she said as she left. “Enjoying life, that’s the bottom line.”

Back at Centennial Farm, children crowded around the pen of Ms. Scarlet Sweet Cheeks, a 500-pound Hampshire sow who had given birth to 11 black-and-white piglets 10 hours earlier.

With their eyes tightly shut, the newborns suckled their mother as she slept, exhausted from her three-hour labor.

“As much as we’re a bunch of city folks,” said Steve Bondi, “[the children] love to come down and see the baby animals--the chicks, the piglets.”