Here’s a memory from Lynn Plumb:
“We first attended the fair in 1984. By 1985, Steve was volunteering and soon we all were. Our kids and their cousins grew up at the fair. Each fair is special, but for me the most memorable was 1994.
I was coordinating the Maine AIDS Alliance booth in SPA and had 7-week old May in tow. Friday it poured rain, truly poured. And yet over 7,000 hardy souls attended Common Ground (I thought, only in Maine would 7,000 people get up in the morning, see the driving rain, and think ‘let’s go to the fair, no one will be there’). I felt lucky to be under cover in a shed booth where I could nurse May out of the rain and wind.
Tristan was 6 years old and spent the day damming rivulets and building board bridges between my SPA booth and Lucy’s llama’s across the way. Julia, then 11, sought peace, warmth, and stories … when she was not hanging out in animal stalls. Steve and Noel tromped through the mud trying to keep all the lights on.
The next day, the sun came out and we went to the fair again!”