Tennessee’s Appalachian Fair continues this weekend

GRAY, Tenn. – “Is that the best you can do?“ Bozo shouted. “My grandma can throw harder than you!“

Bozo, the red-painted clown manning the dunking booth at the Appalachian Fair, was antagonizing a father-daughter team who were pelting balls as hard as they could in his direction.

“You side-armed sissy!“

Adrian, Paul Grigg’s 10-year-old daughter, was fuming. In a failed attempt to redeem her father’s honor, she took a running start and lobbed a ball as hard as she could, missing the mark by several feet.

“That was close,“ her dad encouraged her.

“Close?“ shouted the clown, cackling maniacally.

Six balls and $4 in, the Griggs still hadn’t dropped Bozo into the 250-gallon water tank below his perch.

Adrian turned to him, yelled “you’re mean” and stuck out her tongue.

“Don’t stick your tongue out, girl,“ Bozo hollered. “You look like a zipper.“

Bozo, a 39-year-old Elizabethton native, has been the obnoxious dunking clown with the traveling amusement company since 2000. He calls his 5-by-10-foot cage his home, and torments passers-by from a microphone duct taped to the ceiling.

He said he’s been dunked quite a few times since they’ve been back in Gray.

The Appalachian Fair is the second largest in the state of Tennessee. Although, attendance numbers are down slightly this year, a fair official said. On Monday, 23,881 people swept through, Tuesday saw 29,151, and Wednesday, 33,108.

But Bozo said he expects the weekend to bring in larger crowds seeking an Americana-good time.

Down the way, two blonde siblings, Ethan and Charis Martin, ate their first funnel cake and rode their first roller coaster.

“This is the only time they’ve ever been on anything quite this high and quite this fast,“ said their mother, Amy Martin.

She and her husband, Mike, are Christian missionaries in Indonesia, and back in the country to visit his Piney Flats mother and introduce their children to American culture.

For that, they said, there’s no better place to start than the fair.

Ethan pulled huge chunks of dough from the paper plate, while Charis poked her finger into the powdered sugar and licked it.

Ten minutes later, with just a little help from their parents, the paper plate was empty.

The kids have seen monkeys pluck potato chips from their mother’s hand, Amy Martin said. But, they’re amazed by mailboxes and the ferris wheel.

Off the midway, another set of siblings feels a bit more at home.

The brother and sister duo from Hill Valley Farm in Jonesborough got to skip two days of school to show off their good-looking sheep.

They form something of a grooming assembly line and usher their brood, all named after country stars, from bath to blow dry to trim.

“It’s funner than you think,“ a freckled Darin Gardner, 11, said while pushing a bowlegged sheep named Shania Twain into position on the sheering stand.

He and his sister, Brittany, 13, are newcomers to the sheep-showing business. This is their third year at the fair, and they pointed out the stiff competition. The awards are based on the “structural correctness” of the sheep, Brittany said, while Darin practiced his answers for the judges toughest questions. A shiny belt buckle doesn’t hurt either.

“This is one of the best family things I can imagine,“ said their mom, Alison McCracken. “We travel together, we’ve been here since 7 o’clock this morning, and we’ll probably stay until midnight tonight.“

The kids show their sheep today and Saturday. They think they’ve got a winner in Kellie Pickler.

Meanwhile, in the distance, a very mean clown is shouting: “Hey, Blondie. Miss Clairol called. She wants her bottle back!“