School portraits / County Fair · 2021–22
The cotton candy review with no cotton candy
At Parker’s County Fair, the shortest line turned out to be a disappointment.
About an hour into Parker’s County Fair in May 2022, Lucy Wrubel noticed something promising: the cotton-candy line had disappeared. The junior was writing a food column for The Parker Weekly. A treat with no wait was an excellent development.
At Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, sophomores organize the fair with their grade heads. It is a whole-school affair, not just something for their friends. A fair is a large promise for a tenth grader to make to the rest of the school.
In fall 2021, Chloe Buckley had spent weeks arranging student shifts. The decor team had ordered seven hundred balloons, chalk, and fog machines. I admire the confidence of people who look at a school event and decide it needs its own weather. Then COVID cases forced the school to postpone the fair a week before it was due. Chloe was frustrated. Getting everyone onto a schedule is hard enough without losing the date at the top.
The fair finally went ahead on May 27, 2022, still celebrating Parker’s 120th anniversary. There were scattered rain showers. The sophomores and their grade heads managed the return, and the school had its fair again.
Lucy, however, did not get her cotton candy. The vanished queue meant the stand had run out. She still wanted to cover this essential part of the fair, so she consulted sophomore Quinn Kass, who called it “very fluffy and flavorful.” Quinn had also helped make it and run the booth. Lucy acknowledged the problem with her witness: this was hardly an impartial assessment.
I like a student review that comes with its own objection. The cotton candy was gone. The skepticism was in excellent supply.