The Franklin County Fair happens in Malone every year in August, and is an annual highlight in a place where highlights are few and far between. For me the Fair was extra special, because my father was usually the radio station guy that interviewed the performers that played there at night, and I was his helper. Helping generally meant sitting in the same room without coughing while the interview was being taped, and I was pretty good at it. I got to meet a lot of people that way, mostly old country guys that were near the end of the line (Roy Acuff comes to mind immediately) and some Rock and Roll types that had seen their day in the sun come and go, like Johnny and the Hurricanes.
The interviews took place in what I remember to be a long, skinny, partially underground building built behind the stage with windowless, divided stalls that served as dressing rooms for the performers. I have no idea what the purpose of the building was for the other 51 weeks of the year, but I can’t imagine that it wasn’t used for something.
This particular evening my father was interviewing Sonny James, who was pretty popular at the time and seemed to be a really nice guy. His band members were all floating around and they were pretty friendly as well. One of them came up to me, said he needed a lemon before going on stage, gave me a dollar and asked me to go find him one. My first thought was that a candied apple might be a lot tastier and easier to find at a fair but I didn’t ask questions, just ran out the door and began my quest. I visited a few hot dog stands on the grounds but had no luck at all, not even suggestions of where to go. Then it came to me – about a half mile up the hill from the fairgrounds was Sansone’s Fruit Stand, and fruit stands were known to have lemons, even in upstate New York farm country. I ran as fast as I could to Sansone’s and sure enough, they had lots and lots of lemons! I bought two of them for a dime, got my change and ran back down the hill, bag in hand. I don’t remember needing to talk my way back onto the fairgrounds – I must’ve just run through the gate and nobody bothered to stop me.
As I got closer to the grandstand area I realized that I had failed in my mission – the band was on stage and playing, and I immediately started to panic. I was sure the guy thought I had walked off with his dollar, and worse yet, he was acting really strangely on stage. He was looking more and more uncomfortable by the second, was tapping his foot with his knees pressed together and was looking around to the other band members for some kind of help that would never come. Finally he took his guitar off and (to the gleeful howls of the audience) ran off the stage altogether… apparently to urinate. At that point I was quite sure that he had needed the lemon as a kind of anti-pee treatment and that I’d ruined the show. A couple of minutes later he came back on stage in a less agitated state and the rest of the performance went on without incident.
After the show I ran backstage and handed the guy the bag of lemons and his change. He thanked me, told me that it was no problem I was late because he sang just fine without the lemons and now he would have some for the next day’s show. He let me keep the change and off I went. I still felt bad that he had embarrassed himself in front of that huge crowd but knowing that I hadn’t contributed to it certainly helped.
A few years later Sonny James again played the fair, and this time I watched the show from the grandstand. Sure enough, my guitar playing lemon-eating friend was up there, happily doing his job, until he ran off the stage mid-set to… pee. Probably for the thousandth time, but this time with a delighted audience member that now understood a few things a whole lot better.
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