The Canadian National Exhibition or Ex, takes place every year for 18 days in Toronto and ends on Labour Day. The CNE is Canada’s largest annual fair and the seventh largest in North America. The first Canadian National Exhibition took place in 1879, largely to promote agriculture and technology in Canada. Agriculturists, engineers and scientists exhibited their discoveries and inventions at the CNE to showcase the work and talent of the nation. There are millions of visitors coming from all over the world just to visit the CNE and watch the stage acts. Parking is always difficult. You either get there early in the day or you end up parking blocks away. Not too big a deal if you’re going without kids, but a real pain if you’re taking your wife who’s pregnant and your infant daughter.
Karen had been going to the Ex since she was a young girl. In fact her family was connected to the Ex through a movie called “Johnny At The Fair” starring her brother Charles and featuring Karen’s mum & dad. The movie was made in 1947 to celebrate the Ex’s re-opening after the 2nd World War. But, that is another story.
Karen and I went every year while we lived in Toronto and 1975, the year Adam was born, would be no exception. I left work early and we drove down to the Ex. It was 4pm, the chance of getting a parking spot anywhere near the Ex was going to be next to impossible. Still, I drove up to the parking lot adjacent to the main gate. It had a “full” sign on it but…I had a plan. I rolled down the window and in my best Dale Carnegie salesman’s voice I said to the young kid in charge, “look I have a real challenge here, I have a young baby and a pregnant wife who’s due in a month, do you think maybe you could let us in. Maybe there’s a small spot we can park in. ‘cause honestly the other parking places are miles away.”. The kid looked into the car, saw Karen and Jenny and shrugged and said, “Ok, take a look but don’t block anyone.”, “That’s wonderful”, I smiled back, “thank you so much”. And in we went. Sure enough there was a parking space. I parked the car, we got out and I assembled the stroller. Then we looked around for the entry booth, to buy our tickets. Strangely we couldn’t see one. What we could see was that we were only a few steps from the Midway and there was no barrier preventing us from just walking in. This was crazy. What had happened? Where’s the ticket booth? Then it hit us. We were in the Exhibitors’ Parking lot.
I had actually talked our way into the Ex for free, including the parking. Well lookout next year, I’m on a roll.
Next year rolled around and honest to goodness we repeated the whole act again. This time we stuffed a cushion up Karen’s dress to make her look pregnant again.
We tried it one more time the following year and couldn’t get in that time. Busted. The run was over. Oh well!
