Hey, kids! DUCK!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

The State Fair also brings in entertainers from around the globe at various levels. Musicians bring in their Top-40, country, gospel, or sometimes hair-metal tunes; local acts play an even smaller stage; and a few touring entertainers perform in the farm-equipment areas, around the animal-education section, near the 4-H Building, or over by the Grandstand. Some charge no admission, earning only the intake from whatever merchandise they sell after their performance. Others aren’t there to huckster; they’re just there to show off their skills and presumably make money from State Fair officials without passing the hat around to visitors.

One event we attended this year was called simply The Parkour Show, a fun display of acrobatics. Four guys leaped, bounced, tumbled, did standing somersaults, and wowed a crowd that hopefully knows better not to try this at home.

Our host introduces Fernando.

Fernando introduces Zack and knocks him for a loop.

Our Heroes ask for a group of brave volunteers to come on up, sit in a circle, and watch in terror as the guys take turns vaulting over them. Xavier leads off the daredevil display of derring-do.

Chris takes a turn, too quickly for his hat to fall off.

Zack wants in on that Frogger action.

Our host gives Fernando a turn at the mic.

Not one to hide from danger, the host joins the fray, standing in place while Chris flies overhead, snatches his hat…

…and sticks the landing.

While Team Parkour chills out, Zack goes head-over-heels airborne overhead.

My one regret: when we see parkour in movies such as Casino Royale, Live Free or Die Hard, The Bourne Whichever, Brick Mansions, and so on, it’s always around skyscrapers and other tall constructs that allow for vertical as well as horizontal movement. Sadly, State Fair officials were too cheap to build a skyscraper on site just for the Parkour Show. Shameful missed opportunity.

To be continued!