Field Work
Done did the Puyallup and saw much. The transition out of the Seattle bubble couldn’t be any more dramatic than when I-5 dumps you out on Federal Way’s Enchanted Parkway—shown above—and yes, that’s a Fatburger right next door to LA Fitness.
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A few miles further south on S.R. 161 in Milton—when will we stop building stuff like this?
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And this.
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Drive-thru espresso—American ingenuity at its finest.
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Hope and pray for no foreclosure.
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On a pedestal, where it belongs.
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Will the jet builder fare better than the car builder?
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Another crisp, fresh auto dealership denies the future.
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A house in Puyallup.
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A church in Puyallup.
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Inside the gates, oh, the humanity. First of all, can someone please explain why carnies have such awful teeth? And apparently I didn’t get several memos, like the one about how the body-piercers and the Seahawks-shirt-wearers have merged into the same tribe.
On the other hand, the sea of people testified to how some things never change:Â teenage girls will always feel the need to plaster their faces with makeup; the black heavy metal concert tee will never—NEVER—go out of style; Huey Lewis and the News will be relevant forever.
In one of the livestock barns (the best part of the Fair) I overheard a woman telling the story of the big grey horse in the stall behind her, how it was going to be sent to the slaughterhouse but at the eleventh hour somebody called somebody who called her daughter, who then begged to be allowed to take the horse, and they did, and the horse was delivered on none other than Christmas Day, and it was so malnourished they could see every vertebra and rib, but they nursed it back to health and here was that same horse today, an award winner. That’s America.
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And lastly, a little culinary tease for y’all, a carnival specialty: funnel cake.  The stomach says no but the tongue says yes. Perhaps this has something to do with the carnie teeth woes.