In Dallas one day last week a sharply tailored old man climbed into a custom-built beige Chrysler, and headed through the wahooing streets to the fair grounds. There, with a minimum of speechifying, Bob Thornton, 73, snipped a ribbon with a pair of diamond-studded shears and proclaimed the opening of the 1953 State Fair—the biggest in Texas and therefore, in Texan logic, the biggest in the world. Then, as the calliope tuned up and the first of more than two million fairgoers poured down the midway, Thornton turned sadly back to the...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
