Published: July 26, 2008 01:06 am      

Different cabins, same fun

For most of the year, the Long cabin and the Bates cabin couldn't be more different.

The tiny Long cabin was built in 1968, didn't get air conditioning until a decade later, and is still unfinished on the inside. The Bates cabin is brand spanking new, is equipped with a large, new kitchen, and a flat screen television. It's three stories high and sleeps 52.

But during the week of the Neshoba County Fair, what happens in and around the two cabins could hardly be more similar. As fair cabins, both are home to enormous meals, family reunions, hospitality, camaraderie, and fun.

Tommy Long lives in Huntsville, Ala., but was born and raised in Neshoba County and has been coming to the fair his entire life. Over the years, he said, only one really noticeable change has taken place at the fair.

"Fifty years ago," he said. "There were not nearly as many cabins. But the atmosphere, the food, the fun, the family activities (haven't changed)."

Like many families with fair cabins, the Longs make the fair a time for family reunions — bringing in relatives from as far as Portland and as near as two miles down the road.

Family, friends, and fair neighbors all love to gather at the Neshoba County Fair.

"If they don't come here, they never see each other," Long said of some of his family.

To Long, the real value of the fair comes from the people and the atmosphere of hospitality.

"You could walk into any cabin at any mealtime and get fed," he said. "When you're fixin' for 20 people, fixin' for 30 is not that big a deal."

Still, Long said, he doesn't just hang around his cabin visiting with friends and offering drinks to strangers all week long. He likes to get out and enjoy the events of the fair as well.

The horse races, he said, are exciting, and he loves to watch the night time music programs.

One of Long's favorite memories of fair music, though not his favorite listening experience, is of Molly Hatchet, a 1970's southern rock band.

He had never heard of the band, he said, when he decided to go and check them out. Based on the name, he expected a solo female act.

"The two walls of speakers on the stage should have been a clue," he said. "I sat there about 10 minutes and had to leave. My body couldn't take the soundwaves."

For the Bateses, The Miss Neshoba County pageant is the main event. Hannah Lee, who won the title two years ago, comes by it naturally. Her mother and aunt both placed in the pageant in their day.

The best thing about the fair for the Bateses, though, is the same thing that attracts the Longs.

"To me (the fair has changed) just because I've gotten older," said Hannah's mother, Tammy Bates Lee, "but the family part is still what we really enjoy about the fair... Just getting to be with friends and family is the best part of the fair."

Tammy has been coming to the fair, where her parents, W.J. and Carolyn Bates, own a cabin, since she was a small child. But to her, the cabin itself is the only thing that's really changed.

The new cabin is built where the old one once stood, but has been updated and expanded to sleep 52. The clever use of numerous bunk beds, all extremely colorful and pushed close together, and the efficient placement of the cabin's many bathrooms help the cabin sleep so many. The cabin is large, but looking from outside, one would never guess it could hold so many.

"We have one double bunk bed for each member of the family," she said. "So each one has room for three guests."

At the Neshoba County Fair, whether it's done through feeding as many people as possible or sleeping them, the party is all about the people.