Bleat the heat

Tim HART and his professional racing pigs drove for four straight days from Nickerson, Kan., and last night, thanks to their truck’s blown motor, none of them slept more than two hours. Still, everyone’s in top form this morning. It is, after all, the opening day of the Los Angeles County Fair -- the nation’s largest.

With his barefoot-rancher’s hat-and-overalls look, Hart is clearly an old pro at this game. He slathers his accent on thick, revving up the crowd as his partner wrangles the squealing piglets into four tiny stalls. “The louder y’all are,” Hart tells his audience, “the faster these pigs are gonna run!”

And sure enough, when the gate flies open and a hundred little-kid screams fill the air, those piglets bolt out, all ears and snouts, tumbling and galloping down the sawdust track, chasing any remaining suburban malaise right out of the day.

On this opening Friday, admission is $1. By 11:30 a.m. it’s already well above 90 and the air is thick with the heat. Hundreds of cars snake the Fairplex perimeter, and the line at the entrance is already the length of a city block. Thousands of people are seeking a refreshing dip in a vat of real life, county-fair style. That means deep-fried Twinkies, life-altering carnival rides, underappreciated crafts such as table- scaping and, of course, live farm animals.

“This is telling a huge story,” says Sky Shivers, whose weathered face, wire-rimmed spectacles, handlebar mustache, cowboy hat and yellow neckerchief tell a story of their own. “It’s like a giant painting, if you want to look at it that way.”

Shivers is standing in the Big Red Barn, a large, open-air structure with a dirt floor and a farm’s loamy smell, surrounded by pens of sheep, goats, pigs and cows, all of which are either pregnant or have just given birth. Newborn kids wobble in the hay under a sign that reads: “Just born! Sept. 9, 2004, 3 p.m., doe + kid, 7 lbs.”

The barn is crowded with families. Children reach tentative hands toward tiny lambs. Couples walk arm-in-arm, stopping to gape at a 600-pound pregnant sow panting in the heat. The exhibit is one of the fair’s most popular, says Shivers, primarily due to its “high ‘awww’ factor.”

A professional storyteller from Prague, Okla. (he says he’s been described as sort of “a cross between Bill Cosby and Jeff Foxworthy”), Shivers is also an experienced rancher, who knows things like “the end of a pig’s nose is the only place there’s a sweat gland” and hogs are “always in a mud hole because that’s self-preservation.”

With his wife, Deborah, and his daughter, Tracy Lynn, Shivers helped design this exhibit last year to educate city folks on the ways of livestock. “Last year, we had 500 people standing in a circle watching a cow give birth,” he says. “It took all day.”

Hot, hot, hot

By 1 p.m., everyone is slick with sweat and shade is in high demand, leading to the question: Why hold the fair during the hottest month of the year? Answer: Because the California Horse Racing Board insists the fair coincide with its September races, as it has for 80 years.

The line at the Cherry Icee booth is 10 deep. Clouds of smoke waft from the BBQ Turkey Leg stand, but there are few takers. Hot Dog on a Stick is doing a swift business, and it seems every other fairgoer carries an ice cream or cold beer.

At Rose’s Mexican Food near the Plaza de las Americas stage, the Olivas family serves chile verde empanadas, enchiladas smothered in cheese, and plate after plate of nachos piled high with shredded meat. It’s their 20th year at the fair, a detail that landed co-owner Rose Olivas a live early morning TV interview with Univision, even before she could start preparing her menudo. She readily credits her mother-in-law for teaching her that the secret to a good mole -- and perhaps a happy life -- is “not what you put in. It’s how you process it.”

The horse races are in full swing now and giant TV screens project the action over battalions of baby strollers, meandering packs of school children, even Miss Teen Pomona and Miss Teen Princess, whose tiaras and tight dresses draw stares. Some people retreat to the air-conditioned grandstands or indoor shopping areas.

Not Andrea Mejia, though. She craves “the real fair,” the animals, the contests and the crafts. That’s what lures her inside the Tapestry of Tradition, a large exhibition hall featuring the county’s best of everything, from macrame and computer-generated newsletters to baked goods and hooked rugs.

Mejia admires the “table- scaping best in show,” a turn-of-the-century African safari in the form of a table setting, and explains how she grew up on a farm in Covina and once wanted to be an actress or a dancer. Instead, she became a Sunland mom with killer baking skills.

Eventually, Mejia won first place at the L.A. County Fair for her Kentucky pecan pie and second place for her Texas-size pumpkin muffins and her honey whole wheat bread.

“The year I won for my first pie,” she says, “I just stood there and cried.”

Today, her daughter, Jacobi Lynn, is a dancer and a choreographer. But like her mother, Jacobi prides herself on her fair savvy. “Last year I was in the spaghetti-eating contest,” the petite 26-year-old says. “I was this close to getting it.”

Which reminds her, it’s nearly 3 o’clock and she wants to enter the bean-spitting contest. The Mejias wave goodbye and disappear into the crowd.

Outside, dozens of War fans (remember the song “Lowrider”?) line up for tickets to tonight’s concert. And yet the Ferris wheel is nearly empty. It’ll be several hours before most teens hustle a ride to the fair and crowd the carnival.

Six ride tickets (or $5.40) buys a seat; no waiting. And suddenly everything is ant-size -- the horses on the track, the jockeys’ satin uniforms, the streaming crowds, the acres and acres of parked cars. It’s quiet up here, 115 feet off the ground. The mountains loom large and the wind is hot. Then the wheel turns, dropping back down to earth, and once again the fair is larger-than-life.