Look who's coming to my little burgh....(plus old radios)

[Ct Yankee]

http://www.durhamfair.com/entertainment/

Durham hosts the largest Agricultural Fair in Connecticut, we swell from 7,000 folks to a gate of 250,000 over the weekend.  The Saturday entertainment is pretty outstanding.  If you go, stop by the Canning Department (note my email address) and say "Hello", the Mrs. and I will be manning the display of 900-plus entries.  The pickles, wine, and maple syrup will have been opened  !  Oh yes, in the antique farm machinery/household museum building there are some radios on display (keep forgetting to jot down the models), I learned what was meant by a farm model radio.  
http://www.farmcollector.com/equipment/farm-radios

Sorry Skipmunk, no Big E for me.  Runs the the same time as ours and far too much Sox attire is worn up north!

[Skipmuck]

Hey CT Yankee! My mother and younger sister used to raise show rabbits back in the late 60's/early 70's and I attended a show once down in Durham....it might have been 1971 if I recall correctly. I remember there was an old cemetery nearby, and my brother and I spent at least an hour or so looking for the oldest dates on the headstones there. It was kind of spooky, but at the time we thought it was cool! Durham was quite a change from the hustle and bustle of Springfield, MA.....

 Hmmm...there seem to be an unacceptable amount of Yankee hats and t-shirts in these parts.....but the American League East standings tell the whole story! 

[Ct Yankee]

Skipmunk, by the description given, you and your family were here.  Durham is quite the change for me, too.  Born in the immigrant residing lower eastside of Manhattan, raised in Queens.  BTW, only 2 back in the loss column and by the end of the weekend only the Chisox will have played fewer home games in all MLB than the pinstripes.

[Skipmuck]

Back in those days, my parents would drag us along to all the Agricultural Fairs and back roads of New England and upstate New York so my mother could enter her prize rabbits at the various shows....there are still a bunch of blue ribbons in a box of personal items my mother left when she died back in 2011. My folks had a pop up camper and of course, being the adventurer, I had my own tent. I totally dissociated myself from the workings of the shows, and with my trusty Garcia-Mitchell 300 and tackle box, would roam the unknown in search of places to fish. I never really saw the point of breeding rabbits, as they seemed to do just fine without any outside assistance  I was young, brave, and filled with a sense of wanderlust and youthful abandon....and yes, I got lost a few times.....I recall now the Durham fairgrounds as I believe we attended the 4-H shows there on 2 occasions. I took off to go fishing...there was a brook nearby...Allen Brook? I didn't catch anything so I headed home and later my brother and I checked out that cemetery. I had a Radio Shack transistor radio that accompanied me every where I went...I got a lot of mileage out of that radio! I was born and raised in the blue collar working class neighborhood of East Springfield about a stones throw from the old East Springfield Westinghouse plant. That is all gone now, but until a few years back, the old WBZA towers were still on top of the oldest Westinghouse building, which was originally the East Springfield Stevens-Duryea plant.

 As for the Red Sox this year, it would seem that without the killer pitching staff, we would be hanging around the AL East cellar. Big Papi is sorely missed. But I won't say anythng further regarding the "Y" word...ummm..it ain't over til it's over 

[Ct Yankee]

Remarkable memory, Skipmunk.  The Durham Fairgrounds, among many other things, hosts both the regional 4-H Fair and the more significant Agricultural Fair. Your phonetic spelling of the body of water is correct, it is actually Allyn Brook.  I am a tenth of a mile away from the 15 foot wide north flowing Coginchaug "River", the Allyn Brook flows into the Coginchaug at the Fairgrounds - 2 miles north of me.  It continues from the Fairgrounds north for 6 miles to Middletown where is empties into the south flowing Connecticut River.  I'm guessing you may have had good luck with your pole, the section of Coginchaug from my neighborhood to the Allyn Brook is thought to be the best natural Trout hatchery in the state - but then again, it is a hobby I never pursued.

[Skipmuck]

If I had a sack of gold, I would trade it for another summer like that one back in the late 60's/early 70's when the whole world was there for the taking....thanks for confirming the name of that brook! My memory (and memories) were good from that time of my life. I remember having no live bait (that reads worms!), and armed with the only 2 lures I ever used, an Al's Goldfish (locally produced at the time in Indian Orchard, which was part of Springfield, by Al Stuart who owned a sporting goods store and made the lures in the basement of the store), and of course the ubiquitous Eppingham Daredevle. I never had any luck to speak of with either....a couple fish on here and there but that was about it. I recall walking upstream on Allyn Brook until I came up to a short manmade waterfall composed of old stones maybe 15 feet high or so. There didn't seem to be any easy way to access the upper part....I suspect this might have been an old millpond up there or something. Anyway, it was probably private property, so I returned to the fairground, fishless, but with a memory that was jogged by your posting here! No, I did not land any trophy trout that day! But thank you for bringing that memory back from a time when the world was at my door and things seemed so much simpler. Times have changed.....