It's a nondescript few acres on the edge of a small town...the town I lived in for twenty-two years before I went away.  Along the edge is the remains of a tow-path for a canal.  At the far end is where the High School baseball team played.  In it's center, I ran the two mile in Track & Field meets.  I usually came in third or fourth--a guy named Rich always beat me.  It was here, at a meet that I kept watching for my father to come and watch me run.  He had to work late at IBM that day.  In front of the grandstand was a half-mile oval.  Trotters used to race there.  I sat by the fence during the County Fair and watched Joey Chitwood's Dare Devils smash cars and do 360's in the dirt track.  I sat in the grass one night with my childhood girlfriend and watched the fireworks.  A burned out piece of sky rocket landed in my lap.  Beneath the grandstand was where the ladies of the garden clubs showed their sprays.  Proud and plump mothers displayed their best apple pies.  The Boy Scouts had a table there.  In the green space shown in the photo was the Midway.  Along the macadam path were the bottle toss games and the dart and balloon games.  Games you could never win.  The rides filled the wide section adjacent to the Midway.  I rode the rocket ride--two rockets opposite each other on a metal connector.  You spun and were flipped upside-down. The change fell from my pockets.  The operator says he never saw a thing.  His pockets bulged with coins.  Circling close to the far edges were the shows.  The Spook House.  I probably saw the last of the freak shows there in the mid 1960's.  And, best of all, a large trailer and attached tent: this was "Bubbles", the strip show.  The farmers with bib overalls edged closer to the narrow stage when the barker would call the girls out.  "Come on out, girls, show 'em how pretty you are...show 'em your legs...show 'em a hint of what they'll get to see for fifty cents.  The farmers wives hung back and frowned.  I stood with my jaw dropped and gaped at the bangles and sequins and the high heels.  Behind the shows were the trailers where the workers, scammers, the strippers would live.  In the grass behind the camper vans were pint bottle of cheap Scotch and beer cans.  When the Fair moved on, the dark regions behind the grandstand hid panting teenagers and steamed Chevy windows.  Class rings were exchanged and innocence was lost.  It was surely a multi-use facility that the town fathers never dreamed they had.  
     My biggest regret?  My worst memory?  My great loss?  Easy to answer: I never had the seventy-five cents for one of those sausage sandwiches that came smothered with peppers and onions.  I wish I stayed in my town and joined the Elk's or the Moose Club.  I would get to make those sandwiches.  And I would get to eat as many as I wanted.