I hate to admit it, but Roswell has grown on me during the pandemic. There are still many aspects of the culture here I dislike — and yet there are many heartening aspects to it, as well. Take the local state fair as an example. The governor had mandated that all visitors or vendors at the larger state fair in Albuquerque be fully vaccinated. In addition, they were required to wear masks. It’s no secret that the state fair is a big money-making venture…normally. I doubt it was this year, and that was after it was cancelled the year before, leaving the future farmers of America in the lurch with nowhere to sell the animals they’d poured thousands of dollars into raising.
But the Eastern NM State Fair here in Roswell — nah, the cops there were merely crowd and traffic control to the hundreds of people who poured in with no masks and no vaccine passes. My husband and I went on the last night, this past Saturday. Whoa! Another date! My children had already gone with their friends, leaving us to enjoy the displays and live music on our own. And it was fun! The proceeding blogpost will give you three reasons why (was that campy enough? Like a junior high why we should have summer break all year round persuasive essay?).
There’s something about childhood dreams that will always enliven the heart, no matter how old you are. Apart from all the good things that fairs have, such as local canning, quilting, baking, artwork, and flower arranging efforts, this one had a model train display filling an entire room in one of the buildings. Oh, cry my heart! I wanted an electric train so very badly as a child. I still want one, though I don’t know if I’m willing at this point to put the money and time into the hobby. I don’t think my parents were either; that’s why Santa ignored that item on my wish list.
Model trains are visual storytelling. I think that’s why they appeal to me. The tracks circle under, over, through, and around mountains, tunnels, villages and cities. There are peaceful farms and forests; cities with dire emergencies such as fires; villages where a handful of cars sit outside the local diner. Not to mention I’ve always lived somewhere near train tracks, such that train whistles are a nostalgic and comforting sound. That’s what you get with a model train. And the best part is they can be controlled these days with apps on the phone — or, at least, the guy running this one was controlling his that way.
The train was obviously number one. Number two: there were pirates. They were like one part of a circus act brought to the fair, a high wire and a giant hamster wheel as props on the fabricated pirate ship. Their routine was weird but impressive. You get the idea, I’m sure. Pirates did swashbuckling along the high wire and then chased each other on the giant hamster wheel. I don’t know why I wanted to be a pirate as a child, but there it is. Another childhood dream manifested in a cheesy fair act. I was, in fact, obsessed with pirates as a child. I read pirate adventure books. I read history books about them. I think it was their lawlessness that appealed to me. Unless they were paid by one of the world powers at the time, the heyday of pirates meant paying allegiance to no crown and setting up one’s own economy by, um, acquiring resources. Of course, as a young girl, I didn’t understand that females on pirate ships were generally captives who were raped and maltreated. But fantasies exist in a nether world, not this world.
You’ve probably already guessed that the third reason I loved the fair was the Mexican music. Yes, our local state fair either features Mexican bands or country bands due to the demographics. There was one particularly good band on Saturday night. They weren’t listed on the ads, so I think they were a last-minute replacement. They were called something like Nueva Generación (It might have been spelled with a “z”), but don’t go putting that in your Google search because you will probably only find news articles about the Mexican drug cartel of the same name. This was a young band; they appeared to be high school students or recent graduates. They were so good! They were a traditional norteño band with an accordion as well as a saxophone (though the accordionist played both these instruments, so, alas, they weren’t played at the same time). By contrast, the other two bands had either subpar vocals or timing and lost my interest fairly quickly. The first band, in fact, slaughtered one of my favorite songs, Se Me Olvido Otra Vez. Like, slow it down, dudes. Nobody can dance or sing that fast. Or they shouldn’t. I see good things on the horizon for the “New Generation” musicians, though, if they keep going.
The obvious question that arises is how does Mexican music fit into your childhood dreams? Bah, wrong question. I’ve been obsessed with all things Mexico since I was fourteen, when I took my first Spanish class. Also, I’ve always found radio play pop music to be pap, with only a few exceptions. I’ve been searching for better music since I was twelve and was much happier as an adolescent listening to my parents’ music, which included Vivaldi, Handel, John Michael Talbot (classical guitar and vocal style), and classic rock. But it always seemed that once past the era of the 1950s, the likelihood of finding complex and/or interesting instrumentation plus stellar vocals in the same song goes down precipitously (fifties’ rock still had it*, with brass sections influenced by the jazz and swing era, and vocalists such as Neil Sedaka). I found everything I was looking for in Mexican music, though I admit that many songs on Mexican radio are phoned-in and boring, just like with all popular music.
*Apparently, what I’d interpreted as fifties’ rock was often sixties’. Okay, so I wasn’t born until the seventies.
An actual good version of Se Me Olvido Otra Vez:
And just because I’m sitting here listening to him, I’m going to share my favorite singer, El Coyote:
Jill Domschot 