A Paean to the PNE

Eyesplash Mikul photo: Vintage wooden coaster travels up to 45 mph

On Sunday, we took our annual family trip to the PNE. We bought some tickets on the show home, wandered along the midway and snack booths and lined up for some tasty fish and chips.

To share our hot and fragrant deep-fried dinner, we sat at a rather damp table under a tree that provided some shelter from the drizzle. When we rose, I asked, "Shall we look in on the horse show?"

"No," my daughter replied. "Let's not deviate from our usual routine. We have to get to the barns before they put the animals to bed."

Last year we missed seeing the large animals. This year, we saw a calf that had been born only a few hours earlier, and watched his early efforts at standing. We watched bees making honey, chicks hatching from eggs, and a team of huge brown and white Clydesdale horses being fitted with their glittering harnesses.

We've been coming to the PNE since Yasemin was a baby. We used to live within walking distance. One year, I remember my husband carried our tired girl home, while I carried the stuffed lion he won for her shooting hoops. It was bigger than she was.

When she was little, she enjoyed the kiddie rides. The pink and blue elephants and the small wave swinger were good. But the small coaster was best. "Welcome to the Dragon!" a voice would boom from a tinny speaker, startling the little people just at the moment they were ready to board.

In her teen years, our daughter went to the PNE with her friends, mostly to Playland. In recent years we've been going together as a family again. Our routine always includes the Showmart. There we watch a variety of sales demos. While some sculpt vegetables with ceramic knives, others wash the same bit of floor over and over to demonstrate a new type of mop.

This year we bought the cat brush we saw last year. Last year we bought the steam iron I'd seen a couple of years before that. My husband eyed the high-tech kitchen knives, but resisted the temptation to add to his collection.

A few years back, there was talk of moving the PNE, but it's still in the original location, and attendance is booming. What began as a country fair is a hundred years old. As Shelley Fralic said in yesterday's Vancouver Sun, the PNE is a special treasure, especially nowadays, when many city people have never been to a farm.