I’ve always heard it said that we shouldn’t dwell in the past, but focus on the present. However, the county fair always reminds me of my past and the fun taking place in the present.

Growing up, my dad was a member of the Albany Exchange Club. Every year, my mom would take my sister and I out to the fair, where we would get family wristbands. From the time I was young, my dad would make sure to schedule his parking lot duties around the hours we were going to be there, so he never had to miss that time with us. I have photographs of me riding the Caterpillar coaster with him or up on his shoulders watching the Demolition Derby.

As I grew older, I looked even more forward to the rides. I couldn’t wait to see what I would be tall enough to ride next. Could I finally ride the Fireball?

I wasn’t like other kids in my class who feared these rides that were put together so quickly. If it was there, I was going to ride it. The day finally came when I got to ride The Top Spin.

The Top Spin was the biggest ride at the fair and it was all the way at the very back, so everyone on the midway could see it. The ride strapped in its most daring guests before taking them high in the air and slowly flipping them down while the ride itself also went up and down. For reasons unknown to me, it disappeared after two years of me convincing my dad to ride it with me.

My favorite part of the fair was always closing day, though. That was the day my mom would let me come to the fair and stay late with my dad. On closing day, the food vendors got rid of everything pre-made, because they couldn’t take it with them to their next location. My dad and I would come home with countless bags of cotton candy and candy apples and popcorn. My mom would take little handfuls of cotton candy and slices of a candy apple and stick them in my lunch box for the weeks following. People at my lunch table loved to trade with me.

No matter how old I got, I always returned the week of the fair. I came home several times during college, just to enjoy the good old days, and of course get some fried Oreos and a footlong corndog.

When I came to Thomasville last year and saw they had a fair and a Demolition Derby, I couldn’t have been more excited.

I convinced a friend to go with me, and despite it being different than the one I grew up going to, it was exactly the same. There was still delicious food, familiar rides and tons of games to try and win trinkets.

As many of you know, I am a volunteer leader with YoungLife. Next week is Thomasville High School’s fall break, so we were trying to decide what to do about our normal gathering. We were debating if we should do an activity instead, because there was no way to know how many kids were going to show up. That’s when it hit me.

“We should take them to the fair,” I said.

Our area director also enjoys a good fair and agreed.

I know the kids today have access to virtually everything; they can make fried Oreos in their air fryer and buy carnival scented candles, but I hope they find joy in the simple thrills of old timey fair rides, the smells of the petting zoo and of course the unbeatable food, filled with real butter and not the fat-free, gluten-free stuff they force themselves to eat on a regular basis.

If nothing else, I hope they at least live in the present and can look back next year and say “Hey, let’s do that again.”