A Catholic fair! Well, that explains it. The Catholic Church teaches that Satan took the form of a serpent when he tempted Adam and Eve.
There you have it! Snakes are the cause of all the troubles in the world.
The kid must have been Catholic...his father, too...
Well, it was a Catholic fair, that’s that facts, as you can see from the link I provided — and I went to many as a kid, as every parish had one, including mine. Are you familiar with them? They’re not “petting zoos”, and that was my point.