Fun Was In The Bag Family-A-Fair Had Something For Everyone - Especially Kids

It was like an eclectic haunted house, with painted disguises, candy, tons of squiggling kids, a lumbering pink dragon - and a corner of bagged organs.

The seventh annual Family-a-Fair offered something for everyone, from toddlers to octogenarians, from future artists to future doctors. At least 20,000 people attended the two-day event at the Spokane Convention and Ag Trade Centers.

At first, no one thought the organs were real.

There were two brains, three livers and three lungs in zip-locked plastic bags on a folding table, part of Deaconess Medical Center’s education tent.

“This is a real brain,” one boy told his sister.

“No it isn’t,” she said, poking the bag. “It’s Play-doh.”

Actually, it was a human brain soaked for years in formaldehyde.

The kids’ questions poured out: Are they real? How did you get them out? Can you put them back?

Like many exhibits at the fair, the organ exhibit tried to educate. Placards warning about drugs, alcohol and cigarettes sat behind the organs. One of the lungs featured a huge cancerous tumor. Another was severely smoke-damaged. One liver was in advanced stages of cirrhosis due to alcohol abuse.

“The kids do fine,” said Greg Luck, supervisor of Deaconess’ Anatomic Path Department. He sported a white lab coat and a Three Stooges tie. “It’s the adults who are carrying around a little more baggage with them.”

Kids could also look at X-rays and examine a model skeleton in the corner.

“Mommy, I want to touch the head,” said Janey McWilliams, 4. She also wanted to yank on the skeleton’s left knee. Open the skeleton’s mouth. Poke a bagged brain.

“Janey, don’t poke it too hard,” mother Marnie McWilliams cautioned.

As the fair wound down Sunday afternoon, exhausted parents walked around like zombies while their kids hopped on sugar highs, threading in and out of booths, tossing on candy-striped tutus and Fruit Loops necklaces.

Kids blew on straws to make duck calls. They scribbled with markers that smelled like grapes. They clamored to have their faces painted with rainbows, pumpkins and cats. They dug spoons into purple goop made of food coloring, corn starch and water.

“It’s like quicksand,” piped up one boy.

“It’s hypnotic,” said League of Women Voters booth volunteer Betty Banks. She would know, after playing with the goop for more than two hours.

Alicia Moss and Krista Cunningham both had their faces painted. They both showed off fake finger casts. And they both dropped organs, after learning they were real.

The 12-year-old girls’ favorite exhibit?

“It was the organ thing,” Cunningham said. “We’ve never seen it before.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo