We returned to the Big E this week.
The Big E. The Eastern States
Exposition . The state fair, held yearly in Springfield, Massachusetts , is where one can watch baby chicks hatch, horses cantor and
both huskers and ears of
corn, husk.
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| Really? Aromatherapy can cure Lupus? Dont tell Big Pharma! |
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| A Selfie: me with two sleeping cows |
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| and the inevitable conclusion. |
I
love the Big E because I view the fair as a response to all that is wrong with
our modern lives . In a world of homogenous
apathy, the Big E may be the only
place on the planet where one can view the lovingly grown, largest
gourd in Connecticut and vicariously experience the honest, exuberant joy of a 16 year –old who won a ribbon for raising the best groomed cow in New England.
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| I have no idea what she's doing but she's proud and excited! |
I
have always lived in proximity to state fairs. We visited the
Danbury State fair yearly until someone decided Connecticut needed a Forever 21-chocked mall more than
a tractor pull competition, and maybe they do. The
New York State Fair lies 5 miles from
upstate medical school in Syracuse. I couldn’t begin a year
without inspecting the life sized butter sculpture.
It’s September 21, 2011. I stand at
the portal of the Brigham and woman’s hospital, checking-in for my stem cell
transplant, We are silent and grim.
There is no future, only disease. “You
have 10 years to live,” Firsh told me four years previous, and now, with my
disease surging ahead, six more years on this mortal coil seems an
impossibility. The admitting nurse eyes us warily.
“
Why are you here?”
I ignore the existential entreaty.
“We were told to show up at 9 AM.”
“That’s
crazy. They’ll just make you sit here all day, they wont admit you until tomorrow. Go do something fun.”
The
Dana Farber is 110 miles from the big E. We had to go. The unspoken message was,
of, course “You may never see a polled Hereford (1) again,
you might as well go.”
We
had, I recall, a wonderful time. I
was the proud possessor of a
central line, an IV that runs through the chest wall directly into the
heart. I spent the day trying to fool everyone I was drinking beer through the
plastic straw -like attachment protruding from my shirt. I had been given a quick lecture about
immunity and my complete lack thereof. As far as I could tell, everything one could see, touch or eat at the Big E was on
some banned list. I remember Cyn running behind me, laying down a path of
Purell as If I were a giant snail secreting a glistening alcohol trail.
I
remember taking real inspiration form the Big E that day. I was about to have
buckets of poison and, apparently a little local beer, poured directly into my
heart for the next few weeks but, in
Springfield, life went on,
oblivious to my insanely
perplexing predicament.
At
the Big E, each New England state is given a pavilion in which to display its
local wares, foods and
customs. The Maine pavilion
serves potatoes at 6 dollars a serving,
demonstrating Maine’s two
famous exports: starchy tubers and chutzpah. New Hampshire’s pavilion was transformed
into a big state lottery ticket store. Massachusetts was all about the chowder. Vermont ‘s
exhibit extolled the virtues
of flannel outer ware and maple
syrup. In our Mall -saturated
world, where one can buy the same
Victoria secret bra from coast to coast, shopping at Vermont’s Flannel shop for comfortable plaid work shirts was strangely liberating.
The
day passed. We drove back to Boston.
I lived.
We
returned to the Big E last week.
The cancer is gone, but the malady lingers. I have aged far more than 3 years over the past 36 months. I worry my enthusiasm and life -wonder
is ebbing under a constant onslaught of medication and discomfort. This year, I
was less willing to dismiss the
morbidly obese, lining up to buy hamburgers served between two doughnuts.
I
had my shopping list for this year:
A new Timex watch from the Connecticut pavilion, some lavender
soaps and flannel nightshirts from the Vermont display,
The
fair has changed. The Timex
exhibit where I stock up yearly on
cheap watches ( three for
$50) is now home to Pez,
another Connecticut product. There
may be no more useful object on the planet than a cheap, rugged wristwatch. There may be nothing more redundant and
useless than a Daffy Duck Pez dispenser, available at any Wal-Mart across this
monotonous. indifferent land of
ours. I feel a real sense of loss as metal watch mechanisms are replaced by sugar and plastic. The soaps are gone, replaced by yet another
ice cream shoppe. I do love Ben
and Jerry but I can buy a pallet
of Cherry Garcia in Stockton,
California, and yet the one factory
in Vermont that produces little
bars of lovely
lavender soap is out of business.
I
left the Big E this year with
mixed emotions. I’ll be alive next year. I just accepted a three year commitment with U. Conn to mentor their med students, and
I intend on shaking their hand in
four years. I’m just not sure If I’ll return to the Big E.
The joy of life is in the
unexpected, the breathtaking, the unique. My survival is no longer breathtaking or unexpected but neither is the Big E.
(1) The Polled Hereford is a hornless variant of the Hereford with
the polled
gene, a natural genetic mutation that was
selected into a separate breed beginning in 1889The Polled Hereford breed is
bred for its deep forequarters, depth and muscling, docile temperament,
fast-growing calves, and good quality of beef
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