Labor Day, my favorite holiday, makes no demands. You can barbecue or not, swim or not-- it's the "hey, whatever" holiday. The only requirement is that you rest from your labors. (If you really need to work, though, the Holiday Fairy will understand.) I took a two-pronged approach to Labor Day. First, I visited my parents, who dwell in a retirement community, a tidy cluster of double-wide trailers located in the heart of California's Central Valley. My uncle was there. When the conversation turned (as it usually does) to politics, he told me that a guy he knows had thrust upon him a copy of "The Clinton Chronicles," a videotape that's making the rounds of rabid Clinton haters. I haven't seen the tape, but from what I've read, I understand that it accuses the President of drug-smuggling for the CIA, among other things. (In cahoots with Oliver North? I guess. Talk about your strange bedfellows!) My uncle said he watched about 10 minutes of it before he turned it off in bemused puzzlement. My mother then volunteered that she was increasingly loath even to say Clinton's name around the retirement community, because a mere mention could trigger dangerous rages in that 70-something crowd. My uncle and parents expressed bemusement at the unrelenting filth that has been thrown at President Clinton, and the depth of hatred for him. My father, something of a wag, said, "All the crap they've thrown at him, and they've never gotten anything to stick. Isn't the ability to negotiate a sticky situation a useful ability in a President?" Now, my uncle and my parents are not liberals, and they are deeply Christian people. But they don't have much truck with the Religious Right. Moreover, they take a certain joy (i.e. bemusement) in people who provoke others to emotional extremes. I'm pretty sure they'll all vote for Clinton, just because he has the ability to piss people off, and walk away from it. They may envy this ability, in fact. (I know I envy people who have that ability. Every time I piss people off, it seems to lead to lengthy, complicated and tearful phone calls.) The last word? Because we have very rightwing kin in Oklahoma (my cousin listens to Rush Limbaugh on headphones while plowing), my uncle and father both discussed who would win the Presidential election there. Bottom line: if the crops fail, Dole; if it's a good crop, Clinton. I bade goodbye to my blood kin, bemused and semi-besieged in their double wide, and made my way to Sacramento to the California State Fair, already in progress, the second prong of my Labor Day assault. Now, I'm not enthusiastic about much. For example, I'm not enthusiastic about Clinton's presidency, the seething two-faced weasels of the Christian Right, and Carl's Jr., whose slogan, "If it doesn't get all over the place, it doesn't belong in your face," strikes me as insane. A fine meal is contingent upon ketchup, mayonnaise and hamburger grease spilled on our clothing? But there is something about a fair that brings out the booster in me. I want to sport loud clothing. I want to wear a name tag. I want a camcorder. Oh, what a splendid fair! It had gospel singing, a different group every half hour. It had a guy covered with bees who played Dixieland. It had virtual roller coasters. It had actual roller coasters. It had a Midway crammed full of impossible games, and carnies as tattooed as a waiter in a coffee house. It had the Budweiser Clydesdales. It had sheep shearing, a rodeo, a monotrail, funk music -- it had a seven-year-old lip-synching to a country great. It had a fountain gushing 60 feet in the air, through which small children dashed, half-naked in the 100-degree heat. It had water slides! It had barbecue! It had an infinite variety of sweetened ices! There was a ride that consisted of hurling a couple a hundred feet into the air as their faces were videotaped on closed circuit television. Best of all, there were no politicians, no political messages, no media beyond those allowed within the confines of the fairgrounds. Even the shirts were message-free! Oh sure, some T-shirts had commercial displays: for software, California towns, and obscure rock bands. But the only message I saw was "As If!" on the chest of a bored 12-year-old girl, standing by her parents, who were examining a fairground map with fearful concentration. The young teenagers! The white girls who traveled in threes, giggling, their eyes on fire! The young black men who kept their feelings among themselves. The young brown women in their large casual clothing shifting their weight as they stood in line for Dragon Wagon. And the sun set. The scents of dust, sun block, chlorine, and livestock mingled in the cooling air. Walking back to my car, I looked behind me to see the ferris wheel, exploding in color like a silent fairworks display. The cars on the freeway and the delighted screams of girls provided the only accompaniment to the visuals. And even the leathery father and son I had seen, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, and grimly watching various offspring wend their way through the funhouse, did not diminish my joy (i.e. bemusement). They were taking time from their busy schedule of scanning the sky for black helicopters, UFOs and Christian Paratroopers to enjoy the strange fruits of America. And so was I. So was I.

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