Today is the first day of the Ex!

Today is the first day of the Canadian National Exhibition 2015. I love the CNE and have loved it all my life.

For those of you who don't live in, or didn't grow up in Toronto, the CNE is a great big fair that runs for the last 2 weeks of summer (not actual summer, before-school-starts summer) every year. It's been an annual event in Toronto forever, starting as an agricultural fair long before any of us were born.

It's loud, crowded, hot, over-priced, exhausting, dirty in places, and completely awesome.

I've been going to the Ex (as we lovingly refer to it around here) since my Mom started bringing us there as wee children. (My Dad was busy). I've tried to do the same with my daughters whenever we are in the city at the end of August and I think they love it too, but they can't possibly love it as much as I do.

Why?

The Ex is great now and back in the day it was more or less the same. BUT, back in the day, the rest of the world was way less awesome, and the Ex was where you had to go to encounter awesomeness. 


The Food building had food you couldn't get anywhere else: Tiny Tom donuts, paper bowls of spaghetti for less than a dollar, bags of candy, back bacon on a bun, and an array of international cuisine that blew my childhood mind (I didn't eat any of it, mind you, but I could have!)

The shopping building (Shoppers' World?) had stuff you couldn't buy anywhere else with Exhibition Sales offering prices you couldn't find anywhere else. The Better Living building had marvels of new technology and comfortable couches that - again - you couldn't find anywhere else. The Horticulture building had plants! There were horses jumping over things in the horse building, and calves being squeezed out of their mommy cows in the cow building (not actually called that, but I didn't want to refer to it as the 'building that smells like poop').

And you couldn't experience these tastes and sounds and smells anywhere else or in any other way than by attending in person. There was no Internet. There weren't food courts. American stores were only in America. There was no Canada's Wonderland to offer you funnel cakes or waffle sandwiches. There was only the Ex.

Ah the memories:

• Doggie doggie! Doggie doggie! (I won one once and named him "Clem" because that seemed apropos for a giant ugly orange dog wearing denim overalls).
• Carlsberg horses trotting around in circles (which doesn't sound that fun, but for some reason I thought it was back then).
• The Air Show, with screaming jets flying overhead. And a water show with boats and skiers and the like.
• Again, Tiny Tom donuts, being extruded into boiling hot grease with little David pressing his face against the plastic imagining how good they'd taste (Cinnamon powder? Icing sugar? Plain? Oh, the dilemma).
• Nickel Pepsi. Or Coke, depending on what year it was.
• Street performers, clowns, magicians - so much to see and so little time.

The Ex was the end of summer. It was always a bittersweet time of year. After the Ex, the only thing left before school was sleeping over at someone's house to watch the Labour Day Jerry Lewis telethon. Then it was school and boringness for another 50 weeks.

My youngest starts grade one this year and my eldest is off to a faraway land for yet more university. Middle is getting near the end of her undergraduate degree. September's going to be busy at work. The world keeps moving forward. And only the Ex remains lovingly the same.

I hope I can get there this year.