It is common here for small soccer clubs to raise money by putting on a “Sportfest” consisting of carnival rides and a beer tent, where lame Alpine-Shite music is played and barbecued chickens and sausages are served, with much wine and beer.

One such Sportfest was thrown last weekend in a nearby town and we went Sunday morning, which is a good time to go because the skinheads and other drunks don’t really get going until the evening, so you have time to sit there eating and drinking amongst mostly retired people, drunk before lunch, while small children beg their parents to let them go on more rides.

This time, though, it was just depressing. The whole thing just looked washed-out and sad. There were fewer rides, only one of which Gamma could go on – this carousel with a variety of vehicles – horsies, honeybees, tanks, motorcycles, a covered wagon, sort of a Transformer type guy. Just one trailer selling crappish food (these cones of foam, not icecream, dipped in chocolate, and garlicky elephant ears, and pre-packaged cotton candy) and one more trailer selling crappish belts and t-shirts. One bumper car ride. A couple screamy rides.

Being early, the place was nearly empty. I kept thinking, “Sauron’s realm is spreading.”

Inside the tent, some band from somewhere in the Alps was playing crap music so loud conversation, if you are a little hard of hearing as I am, became totally impossible (although, with my social skills, only I noticed). At tables everywhere, people were shouting at each other. Children were shouting, “just two euro for the rides, dad!” Dads were shouting, “Ask your mother.” Mothers were shouting, “is this supposed to be a chicken? It’s not even a Cornish game hen. This is pigeon.”

The chickens were scandalously small this year. They were like, when I was a kid we raised chickens and they were big, man. My chickens would’ve kicked these chickens’ asses. Small, and dried out. I kept thinking, when I wasn’t thinking about Sauron, about Bolivian mountain mummies. I bet they found chicken like this stored with them in their little clay pots.

Small and dry. Okay if you like skin, because that’s about all there was. The bratwurst weren’t much better. It all looked as if it had been cooked a long time before, and kept warm too close to the fire.

Bratwurst jerky, now in 12 flavors! Including vanilla Gatorade!

So we ate, went on a few rides and left soon, agreeing it was our last visit.

It was sad, a chapter closing. 21 years ago, a young slack hippie named Miguel helped out behind the bar there, carting kegs of beer around on busy nights. A lithe blonde waitress named Alpha, wearing a blue Austrian dirndl dress, carried huge trays of beer around and traveled to Greece on the tips she earned. I once won a fruit basket there, for being the furthest-traveled visitor. My father-in-law and I once shook the hand of drunk weightlifter there, who went on to get drunker, violent, and ultimately shot to death by police.

Anyway. We’ll go somewhere else for chicken from now on.