The Ft. Worth Teen Fair

My fathers' family was in show business. Once it is in your blood they say it never leaves and based on my remembrances of his family I would have to say that is true. I am glad that this is true because their past led me to one of the best experiences of my preteen life. But before I get to that let me share a little Holland family history. My Dad was born in 1919 and grew up between WWI and WWII. His parents were traveling vaudeville stars and they incorporated their children into the act. The Holland Players were quite an act in their day. They were also acrobats. My Dad's father, Harvey, never really lost his health until he was well past age 90. I recall reading a newspaper article where he was interviewed on his 84th birthday. He celebrated (or showed off) his birthday by walking on his hands 84 steps for the reporter. Through the years at family gatherings my Grandparents would get up do routines for the entire family. Vaudeville died out and they found other means of support through the years but they were always entertainers. They also had some "carny" in them too. In the late sixties my Dad's sister Maxine and her husband Gene had a hand writing analysis machine. They also made paper mache boutonnieres. They would rent booths at carnivals and fairs and that is how they made their living at that time. They booked themselves into an event in the summer of 1966 that turned into two very special weeks for me. This was the summer between my fourth and fifth grade years. The event was the Teen Fair which was held at Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth.

My Mom offered to help them work the booths and since it was all day every day for two weeks leaving my brother and I at home was not an option. We got to work with them. And we did work. We manned the booths, sold the flowers, and fed the handwriting analysis machine. There was a real nice and funny guy named Johnny who sold autographed reprint photos of the top teen idol music acts of the day and we helped him in his booth too. But that was maybe 1/3 of the time. Most of our time was spent roaming around with a place full of "real" teens. Is there anything cooler for a preteen than to hang around "real" teens? Nothing could have come close. I know there were boys there too but all I remember caring about was all the beautiful teen age girls. I made a game of seeing how many couples I could catch kissing. There were bands there too. They had the Box Tops and that was when their smash hit "The Letter" was number one on the charts. I saw them do that song live. I was on cloud nine. There were several local bands too and they did a battle of the bands, elimination style, to see who the top local band was. It was all very dramatic to me at the time. I was rooting for a group called "Those Guys" but they came in second place. But the real highlight of each day to me was the fashion show. Every three hours they held this show and models would come out wearing the latest fashions. At the end a cute little girl would dance down the aisle throwing bags of Morton's corn chips out to the crowd and I would scramble to see how many I could get. But that was not the real high point of the fashion show. The highlight for me was the last model. She would come out in a dress and would do a quick twirl to reveal it was BACKLESS! People just did not show that much skin in those days. It made my day every time I saw her though.

There were two cute little girls our age that were at their Dads booth. One was a blond and one was a brunette. It was some kind of car dealership and there were adults showing the new cars. The girls were dressed up like go go dancers and would just dance in front of the booth. I had a huge crush but was too afraid to speak to them. We finally did speak to them on the very last day of the fair. We were outside in front of Will Rogers coliseum . Using typical 10 year old interaction we somehow decided to race. I remember racing the brunette and she beat me. Then I remember falling off the steps and really hurting myself. I pretended it did not hurt but I was in such pain. Needless to say I did not do too well with the ladies....again.

All in all it was just a great two weeks for a 10 year old little boy.

I'm back Wednesday with the weigh in. I'm off and pedaling for now.