Fair-to-Middlin' at Best

The First Family of Affton was tuckered out from baseball games and other activities this weekend, but managed to go to the Twin Oaks fireworks. (As Affton has no fireworks, we look elsewhere.) Now Twin Oaks is basically the Manchester/Ballwin area. They were AMAZING. I have never been so CLOSE to fireworks in my life. I was holding the First Daughter as we watched when to my amazement, bits of paper--some still burning--landed around us. The wind had shifted a bit during the display carrying the shrapnel and smoke towards us. We all got away unscathed but the cars were largely peppered with bits of burned paper.

I made the decision early this year to NOT attend the festival formerly known as the "VP Fair." I have decided that Fair St. Louis is like the French Quarter in pre-Katrina New Orleans. I'm glad we have it, but it's not for the locals. It's really a tourist attraction. The entertainment has been a joke for years. The fireworks are magnificent but I think they had Huey Lewis three times in the decade of the 90's. Now while I think it's great that Lewis supposedly has the largest "unit" in rock'n'roll**, I don't qualify him as great entertainment in the 90's.

It's not that I was even a huge fan of the actual fairground activity, but I was always attracted to all the bands that played on the tight streets of Laclede's Landing in sort of an anti-fair party. This did not happen this year along with the incredibly popular air show. How can we not have an air show? Because of costs? It's our tax dollars! It's already paid for! Apparaently the owners on the Landing thought the Fair was going to be as lame as I predicted and didn't book any entertainment.

I do have to say that I like having more bands for free under the Arch as the summer rolls on. In lieu of finding a corporate sponsor to pay for the highly successful Live On the Levee series started in 2004, the Fair got smaller and they are spinning the Fair this year as a kickoff event for the ongoing concert series. Teriffic. Let's book the Spin Doctors.

**This comment personally heard by ME during a radio interview long, long ago with supergroupie Sweet Sweet Connie (of "We're An American Band" fame by Grand Funk.) She claims it was as long as "two beer cans" stacked together. The smallest unit reportedly belongs to Peter Frampton in case you were wondering.