Nostalgia, they say, ain't what it used to be.

The same, I expect, could be said about the fair.

It has lost some of its glamour now that you can get your fill of rides any time you desire at Starcadia and Six Flags over Georgia.

And cotton candy stopped being a special treat when you could buy it from a kiosk at the mall.

But the Georgia State Fair opens its turnstiles for the 148th time today, and there must be a magnetic force that keeps pulling many of us down to Central City Park every autumn.

Of course, we all realize the Georgia National Fair in Perry has moved onto the Middle Georgia Midway. It has cut into Macon's crowds and stolen much of its thunder.

I compare it to a brand new Super Wal-Mart appearing in the neighborhood, selling everything from tires to tangerines to toothpaste.

How is the family-operated corner store supposed to compete?

If you're the Macon fair, you move forward while clutching the past.

No, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. But nostalgia is squarely in Macon's marketing corner.

After all, this fair has been pitching its tent on roughly the same patch of ground since dirt, except for a brief time during the War Between the States.

The early fairs were held on the old fairgrounds near Camp Oglethorpe, south of Seventh Street. In 1871, the fair moved east to the banks of the Ocmulgee and Central City Park.

The carnies have been barking there ever since.

Can you name another annual event that has been part of our city's generational landscape for so long?

Close your eyes and think back to the ghosts of fairs past.

Was it the first place you ever rode a Ferris wheel, swooping high above the noise and neon before gently circling to the ground?

Where else have you ever tossed coins onto carnival glass to win a goldfish you hoped would survive until you got home? Or thrown baseballs into a peach basket trying to win a stuffed animal for your sweetheart?

Where is the first place you took a crunch out of an elephant ear? Or watched someone making salt water taffy?

Keep your eyes closed, now. Are you there yet?

For city folks, the fair may have been the first place we had it explained to us that a swine is a pig, a bovine is a cow and that hot dogs and milk don't simply come from a shelf at the grocery store.

Where else could you have paid homage to the freaks of the world, plopping down two quarters to see Gabora the Gorilla Lady? Or a man named Sebastian, who boasted the ability to catch a fired bullet between his teeth?

The first fair in Macon opened in 1851 with a ribbon-cutting. Three politicians then stood up and talked for more than an hour each.

Fortunately, we won't have to endure such political babble when the midway opens today at 3 p.m.

Yeah, maybe it's not quite the same.

Too noisy. Too crowded. Too much competition for the senses.

Nostalgia may not be what it used to be, either.

But you'll sure never know unless you go looking for it.