[blparent] Interesting Trip to the Fair

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi.  Gerald and I took Stephen and Sarah to the county fair for opening night.  Overall, we had a great time.  Sarah rode her first roller coaster--a small one for kids--and just about split her face, she was grinning so big.

But something interesting happened at the carousel.  Sarah and Stephen picked out the horses they wanted to ride, which were next to each other.  The horses were three across, with Sarah on the outside and Stephen in the middle, so I took the inside one, closest to the center of the carousel.

The guy who ran the carousel came over and asked Gerald,  "You're going to stand next to her, right?"

Well, both of us thought he was talking about Sarah, so Gerald said yes, he would.  He positioned himself next to Sarah, at the outside of the carousel, presumably so she wouldn't fall off the horse or try to stand up or something.  The ride started, but it stopped after only a few rounds, and the operator came back over.

He wanted Gerald standing next to me, if I was going to ride a carousel horse!  It didn't matter that I'd just ridden a ride that spun me six ways to Sunday.  It didn't matter that I was a grown-up, and that my three-year-old daughter could sit on the slowly bouncing horse independently.

We all got off the ride, and three out of four of us had a bad taste in our mouths.  Thank goodness, Sarah was too young to follow the conversation, but I guess she'll catch on soon enough.

I'm choosing to focus on the good time we had for the rest of the night and not dwell on the incident.  But man, we have a long way to go toward equality!

Jo Elizabeth

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."--Franklin D. Roosevelt