FARMINGTON – Even old folks like the fair. That was apparent as senior citizens converged on the fairgrounds for their day at the Farmington Fair on Tuesday.

Erlon Lee sat on a platform resting his legs, holding his cane in his hand, waiting for his companion, who was visiting the Exhibition Hall.

The 81-year-old Livermore man tries to make it to the fair each year when he feels good enough to see the horse pulling, he said.

“It goes along with being a farm person,” Lee, a retired paper mill worker, said. “I was born and brought up on a farm. We used to raise our own food. We raised factory beans, corn, potatoes, meats, pigs.”

He remembers when the paths along the fairgrounds were dirt rather than paved as they are now, he said.

“The fair is getting bigger, but it ain’t changed much,” Lee said. “I see people once a year that I don’t ever see at home.”

The pace for many fairgoers this day was a bit slower, and minus the screams of children having fun.

Behind Lee several people rested on a bench.

Edward Merrill of New Vineyard comes to see the pulling, too.

“I like pulling. I know the exhibitors and most of the teamsters,” Merrill said.

Another draw to the fair for Merrill is a good batch of french fries – though he knows he shouldn’t have them, he said.

Marcia Hardy of North Jay likes everything about the fair, she said.

“Good food, good people, a family reunion,” said her husband, Dale Hardy.

Viv and Bob Smith of Chesterville agreed with Hardy. They like the music and the food.

“What I really like best about the fair is that we can come here, and there a lot of people in Iraq that don’t have what we have and are fighting … I still think they should come home,” Bob Smith said,

Cecelia Stanley of Kingfield has been coming to the fair for eight decades.

She sat on the platform next to Trudy Crowley, 66, of Wilton.

“My first time I came, I was 4 months old,” Stanley said, though she doesn’t remember it. “I do remember coming to the fair in my snowsuit and my boots,” she said. “I am 80 years old and I only missed two years: 1945, when I was out of state, and 1950, when my daughter was born on Sept. 11. My husband and mother wouldn’t let me come.”

Stanley has been out of school a long time, but Tuesday she met someone she went to Livermore Falls High School, she said.

Crowley’s been attending the fair for at least 55 years.

“I like meeting everybody you don’t see all year long,” Crowley said. “Oh – I love it. I’ve always liked it.”