I love the State Fair. I enjoy just walking around and looking at all the silly people spending more money than they should and looking at me doing the same! I enjoy the exhibits and the barns and eating the roasted corn and the country ham sandwiches. What I don't like, in fact dislike so much I just don't subject myself to it, is going to the fair and coming from the fair! Even the dozen or so doughnuts I would bring home from Ben-Ellen's is not enough reward!

I recall catching a ride from the Fair late on the last night in 1945-47 or thereabouts with Kurt and Cody Mann and others, in their overloaded1936--39 Ford Sedan and all the unsold stock of their hot-dog stand. Somewhere between Alderson and the Fair the car began to overheat from lack of water in the radiator. They stopped and since no water was available one of them poured the remaining Pickled Pigs Feet liquid, the Pickled Eggs vinegar, and the Red Maraschino Cherry juice from a gallon jar of cherries into the radiator. We made it to the home town spreading the strangest aroma into the warm air of the Greenbrier Valley in August.

Disclaimer: I'm not going to swear that I was even in the car, I may have just smelled it, Heck of a good story though! I guess any of the Mann's that could deny it happened or that I was present when it did, (or didn't) are now sadly gone. I don't think Robert was old enough to be out that late.