{due west} 48 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: RICH YEE / DON CARSON CREATIVE old in a police constable costume, “wearing a Bobby’s hat with hair down to my shoulders!” But he also remembers when the fair got canceled when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged Pier 45, their venue that year. “We were a week away from having people on ladders,” he shivers. The following year— referred to as the Freezer Fair of 1990—wasn’t much better. “It happened to be the coldest winter in generations,” Kevin says, and the Cal Expo venue had to be evacuated due to frozen and breaking fire sprinklers. After that, the fair went dark for a time. “My wife and I brought it back from mothballs because so many people would tell us that they missed it,” Kevin says. From 2000 to the present, they’ve hosted at the Cow Palace, which allows them on-site storage (a good thing, since moving all the sets and decorations would require 24 semi trucks). A diligent crew of world builders sets up and tears down each season. “The ‘many hands’ approach,” Kevin quips. “They put their heart and their art into it!” Instigator.” And a friend of Ron’s described him as “simultaneously shrewd, lewd, elegant, exuberant, funny, touching, mule-stubborn, refined, bawdy, wildly creative, exasperating and lovable—all within the same damn minute.” When they hosted the first Dickens Fair in San Francisco’s old Anchor Works warehouse in 1970, Kevin was 10. “My parents put me in the costume of a street urchin,” he recalls. “I had this theatrical world to run around in.” Those early years he performed alongside wicked Mr. Fagin, an Oliver Twist villain who runs a pickpocketing operation. “We were able to really pick pockets,” Kevin reminisces. “We’d hand them off to Mr. Fagin on stage.” The actor would hold up the pilfered items for sheepish audience members to come collect. “We don’t do that particular bit anymore,” he chuckles. Kevin continues to dust off old memories, recalling when he graduated from pickpocket to peeler as a tall, skinny, 17-year-
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