DISCOVERY OF COMMUNITY'S PAST GETS FAIR START.

Byline: JAMES BEMIS Commentary

Despite some new touches like Internet access and a high-tech display in the youth building, the Ventura County Fair is really living in the past. Happily, that's just as it should be.

The theme of this year's fair is ``Reflections of Yesterday.'' In truth, though, every county fair is a reflection of yesterday, a mirror image of who we are and where we came from, a reminder of the importance of our sense of community and place.

Fairs are mythic events in our culture, American as apple pie, as universally loved as mom and ice cream. They're celebrated in movies like ``State Fair'' and ``Meet Me in St. Louis,'' in books like ``Charlotte's Web'' and ``Pollyanna,'' in songs like ``April Love'' and ``It's a Grand Night for Singing.''

Fairs are organ music from the carousel, shrieks from the roller coaster, prize pumpkins as big as sports cars. Nighttime brings the bright lights of the Ferris wheel, the faint sounds of country music from the grandstand as you pass through the entrance gate, that glorious first sip of draft beer out of a plastic cup.

But they're also much, much more.

Why are fairs so close to American hearts? Maybe it's because we feel the ties to our local roots there, a declaration that we're still a particular people in a particular place. At county fairs, time stands still for a while, the relentless economic treadmill stops and our sense of community starts. There's appreciation, rather than contempt, for local life.

Those who work all year in sterile, climate-controlled offices - like me - can smell horses and cows and hay. We see the biggest pickles and the smallest avocados, the best pies and most colorful quilts, the reddest tomatoes and longest carrots.

These things aren't imported from New York or China, but are made and grown right here by people we know, who live in places like Ojai, Santa Paula, Oxnard, Camarillo, Newbury Park. I recognized the names of some winners of 4-H contests, photography honors, cooking and baking prizes, agricultural awards. These were county residents, neighbors, friends. It made me feel proud, and a little bit humble.

The ``Reflections of Yesterday'' theme is woven throughout the fair's exhibits, with old pictures and memorabilia adding flavor to things, like salt sprinkled on a fine steak. My favorite exhibit, though, is the new museum, displaying more than 100 years of Ventura County life.

Here, visitors learn about our area's founding families like the Dudleys, the Olivases, the Bards and the Camarillos. They find out that Ventura was once host to chariot races, see whale fossils, look at an old switchboard, listen to presentations and re-enactments about characters and events from local history. Most importantly, county residents discover they've got a past.

It's important to realize that Ventura County didn't just spring up yesterday, fully grown. Someone before us did the heavy digging and lifting, building what we now enjoy. Every local resident owes a huge debt of gratitude to those who preceded us, an obligation that's too often ignored. What we owe these ancestors can only be paid to our descendant, by passing on the names, stories and traditions of our forefathers and mothers, in loving memory.

Nowadays, the bounds of local community are under constant assault by politicians, advertisers and educators, claiming they can show us how to do things better, faster, cheaper. We're continually advised to think of ourselves as national or even global citizens. But it's not in our nature to feel devotion to something far away if we don't first love what's near.

It's the fundamental connections to our families and neighbors that makes for community life, and community life that makes for a strong, healthy people. For living things must be rooted in something solid - and for humans, it's our sense of place, a sentiment that's reinforced by events like county fairs.