126th Annual Little World’s Fair: Delights for the young and young at heart

Honeybees, SugarBees and so much to please at the fair

By RICHARD A. ROSS

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY — Leave your worries behind and enter a world of wonderful delights. For three days each August the Grahamsville Fairgrounds comes alive with its annual Little World's Fair, a community event literally like no other in this county. Now in its 126th year, the event is an old-time agricultural fair that ranges far beyond its stunning array of animals and farm goods that are competing for ribbons and notoriety. This year’s fair, held from August 19 to 21, was no exception.

Like a kid in a candy shop, it’s hard to know where to rush first. Your nose is drawn to the mixed aromas emanating from panoply of scintillating foods. Your eyes dart back and forth from the busy midway to the sky-bound rides.

In the Main Ring, draft horses pull heavy sleds with men aboard. Elsewhere clinking, ringing and whistling sounds rise up and form a pleasing cacophony of sounds accentuated by the delighted screams as kids soar down a giant slide. Youngsters of all ages add their voices to the mix, as the thrill and terror of the fair rides soar beyond the limits of everyday sameness.

On stage, bands, like the SugarBees from New Paltz, play requests, original tunes and old-time favorites to a crowd who basks in the sun—transported away from a world that is too often heavy with sorrow and trouble.

At the Sullivan County Bee Keeper’s Association booth, you watch the busy bees and learn about the healthy value of bee pollen. You let your taste buds bathe in the sweet liquor of clover or wildflower honey. Inside the barn you meet this year’s Sullivan County Dairy Princess, Ashley Luckey, who has been at the fair for five days tending her prize-winning stock with a 4:00 a.m. wakeup call.

In the open air barn, scores of kids and adults show their rabbits, pigs, goats, chickens and ducks, while next door in the craft barn you can marvel at the handiwork of kids from 4-H and the produce of master gardeners.

Antique cars and spiffy new models dot the landscape and you admire the tractors, farm machinery and ATVs. You understand that everything here is part of a simpler life often obscured by today’s fast-paced nightly news sound bites and technological focus. Bringing people’s attention back around to things like the 4-H, large and small animal shows, agricultural skills and other facets of that simpler life is part of the mission of the Neversink Agricultural Society in sponsoring the non-commercial fair.

If you missed this year’s fair, circle your calendar for that third weekend in August next summer. You too can be a part of the many people who come together to form an idyllic community that welcomes the best of Americana right in our own backyard.