Big Time in Dallas

The keyed-up kids from the country were the first arrivals. Opening day at the Texas State Fair, the biggest annual fair in the U.S., was their day. It was dedicated to Texas 4-H Clubs, the Future Farmers of America and the Future Homemakers. Some in jeans and some in finery, the kids started pouring into the 187-acre Dallas fair grounds at 7 a.m. Some 45,000 of them had come, crowded into 1,000 school buses. Those from far west Texas had been up all night.

As soon as the bus doors opened, even the reddest-eyed wanted to beeline it for the fair's million-dollar midway. They could see the wonders agleam in the sun--the Rolloplanes, the two Ferris wheels, the giant roller coaster, the crazy houses, the Moonrocket and the sideshow tent. But teachers and chaperons had come in the buses, too, and they had a mind for other things. One teacher bluntly told her charges: "You can't ride a thing until you see all the serious exhibits."

So the future homemakers traipsed dutifully through the house furnishings show, looking over the latest things in draperies and taking test plops onto sofas. In the piano exhibit, eleven-year-old Frances Dean, of Comanche, delighted her schoolmates and amazed exhibitors by sitting down at a new baby grand and expertly rippling through a Paderewski minuet. Many a future farmer headed for the livestock barns to primp animals for the junior steer, hog and sheep shows. Ralph Finke, 13, of Denison, hauled out a can of Johnson's wax and set to work polishing the horns of his Hereford yearling.

Comes the Governor. After 9 a.m., the country kids no longer had the fair to themselves. By then, all seven of the main gates were open, and through them streamed goggle-eyed Texans by the thousands (total attendance for the day: 212,-662--a record). Soon, amid a great blaring of sirens, Governor Beauford Jester drove up in a big open car, cut a ribbon with a pair of golden scissors and delivered a speech inflated with standard Texasity.

On the midway, veteran Barker Jim Curtis broke into his spiel: "Step right up and see Digesto the Glass Eater swallow a lighted tube of neon. . . ." Selden the Stratosphere Man climbed up to his perch on a swaying, 225-ft. pole. Air jets started blowing up the dresses of screaming women. The White Horse band beat out a brassy whoop-te-do. Cold-eyed strip-teasers dished out their ancient promises as they asked the boys for an additional four bits to see "the real show."

Goes the Money. Prices at the 16-day fair were higher than ever: Cokes, 13-c- hot dogs and hamburgers, 25-c-; coffee, 10-c-; rides, 25-c-; ice cream sticks, 25-c-. But prosperous Texans seldom batted an eye. Hundreds "took in everything," spent as much as $50 a couple.

Some of the best sights were free. At the horticultural stalls, even Texans were startled to see 13-inch avocados and twelve-inch Ponderosa lemons from the Rio Grande Valley. And, through a loan from Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, fairgoers got a look at the greatest collection of old masters ever shown in Texas (TIME, Sept. 29). On opening day, 10,000 people took in the art show.

But the fair's biggest drawing-card was "Texas' Own" Mary Martin, back home to sing the Ethel Merman role in a roadshow edition of Annie Get Your Gun.* Twice a day, Mary played to S.R.O. crowds in the Fair Park Auditorium. Her nearest box-office rival: the Borden Co.'s famed cow, Elsie.

* Already banned in Memphis -- where it had booked a post-fair run -- because of three Negroes in the cast.

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