An Ode to the Dade County Youth Fair

Islandia Online (IOL) Contributor David Rolland doles out some nostalgia and invites you to look back on past Youth Fairs.

I've now visited the Youth Fair in three distinct stages of life. First, there was youthful innocence. Growing up in the 80s attending Dade County Public Schools, there was no day I looked more forward to then the Spring afternoon they handed out these comic strip drawn maps of the geography of the fair. I've scrounged the internet high and low for evidence of these maps, and found no trace of their existence, but anyone I talked to around my age remembers them. You could see where the Double Looper Roller Coaster was, where the Polar Express that spun endlessly backwards in circles stood, and where their trademark giant swings that elevated you five stories into the air and twirled you around.

What is now formally known as Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition began as the Southeast Florida and Dade County Youth Fair all the way back in 1951 at US1 and Kendall Drive. It's been at the site of Tamiami Park that we all know and love  since 1972. While the rides have changed over the decades, it's cool to stomp over the same grounds and see how much has stayed the same. They still have the cavernous indoor area filled with the best school work our county has to offer. I assume they still have the same theater where in sixth grade my scene partner and I performed a comedy skit which didn’t age so well involving a suicide hotline. It killed in 1990 though! And we each got an iconic blue first place ribbon. They still have all the pigs and chickens and other domesticated animals. They still sell the dipping dots and most importantly they still have the rides.

The rides are why I continued going to the Youth Fair in my second stage of life: juvenile delinquency. As a teenager you seek sensation and so you look for the most treacherous rides that were shoddily assembled in the span of hours as you can. On the tamer side was The Gravitron (yes, the same Gravitron which came apart in 2004 injuring a handful of riders), a red UFO, that spun at such voracious speeds that gravity sticks you to the wall (a few years ago at III Points they had an old Gravitron decked out as a bar). There was the Zipper, where you got inside a metal cage that flipped you around and around. Most bruising was the High Roller, where  a car followed a complete 360 degree loop around a track, only for the track to start rotating as well.

Editor’s Note: This image is uncredited on Reddit but top comment from user theroboticdan felt noteworthy:

In high school I rode the Gravitron with one of those mini glow sticks in my mouth. Gravity forced it to the back of my throat and I started gagging. I tried to call for help but the music was too loud for the ride operator to hear me. After trying to hauwk it up, I had a stroke of genius and rolled from my back to my stomach. The gravity instantly dislodged the stick from the back of my throat. Essentially, I gave myself the heimlich.

But risking nausea isn't enough as a juvenile delinquent, we also had to thumb our nose at authority. And so when the Youth Fair offered an unlimited ride stamp for probably some bargain price of $7 or $10, instead of forking over the cash, we instead replicated their red stamp with some combination of magic marker and Heinz ketchup packages. And since fraud was not enough of a crime we also decided to smoke pot high up on the Ferris Wheel when out of sight from any of the carnies, who might either kick us out, but more probably would have asked for a toke.

I and the world survived my delinquency and so now I get to go to the Fair in adulthood. My daughter is still in that age of youthful innocence, so we go on the tamer rides. The skyline with its tremendous view of the lit up midway. The giant slide that descends at an insane speed. The endless funhouses that always wrap up with a spinning hamster wheel you have to maneuver your way out of.  Her cousins from Tampa, however already have the need for speed. The adorable six year old girl who was with us, who is small enough that she got measured for every single ride, wanted the Tilt-a-Whirl. It seemed like a cinch. You spin around and around just like in that teacup ride at DisneyWorld ride. I still had enough daredevil in me to survive this I figured. But seconds after the ride turned on, my stomach violently disagreed. Closing my eyes did not help. The world would not stop spinning and for a second as the six year old cracked up at my terror, I was actually taken back to my youth. I remember us talking my dad on to the pirate ship ride that would rock back and forth until you were perpendicular to the ground, and in these 44 years of my life it is still the only time I heard him scream in horror.

But like him I survived. And as we left the Fair as I once took, I decided to now give. Now instead of stamps for unlimited rides, they give you bracelets for $35.  As we were headed out some surly teenagers asked if we were leaving. "You want our bracelets?" I asked. They nodded. We slipped them off our wrists,  the delinquents thanked us graciously and off they went to find thrills and deep fried milkshakes.