Our (my wife, sister-in-law, niece, great-niece and great-nephew were with us) first stop was the arts and crafts pavilion, where I got to see a wonderful collection of award winning things: there were prizes for several different categories of photos, knit clothes, vegetables and fruits in jars, and much more all arranged in shelf after shelf. I looked for the winning A-line skirt, since Sharon won a first-prize for that in this same county fair when she was fourteen or thereabouts, but unfortunately they were nowhere to be found. It's a pity, since I was planning on pointing the skirt to strangers and inform them that my wife was a previous winner of that exact category.
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| Prizes for everything! |
Some of the photo categories were standard: animals, portraits, action, landscape, etc, and we had the usual subdivision of color vs. black and white. What I found interesting is that they had a category based on photo-size: 4x6, A4 and bigger. I can understand this in the old days, when printing pictures larger than 4x6 was expensive, but in this brave modern digital world with photo printers at home, the size categories no longer make sense to me.
I found this niche where they had the first, second and third prizes for wool and hay. I spent maybe five minutes looking at them trying to figure out what made one first and the other second, but failed miserably at being able to tell them apart. I mean, I knew what was hay and what was wool (the labels helped), but I could not tell what made one pile of wool better than the other. I blame this lack of knowledge on my big city education.
Then we were off to the carnival rides where my grand-niece, fearless as ever while being only two years old, insisted on riding everything in sight. The look of happiness in her face as she tackled the train, the big slide and much more was wonderful to see. Made me wish I was young again so I could ride with her, but many of the rides had a size limit.
One of my sisters-in-law had been waxing rhapsodic about funnel cakes, so when I saw a booth selling them I had to give it a try and Linda decided to join me. The name is a misnomer, the cakes in no way look like funnels, though I am assured that there is a funnel involved somewhere in the cake-making process. Linda and I ended up with what to me looked like random dough on a plate, covered in powdered sugar. It was tasty, it was messy and when I go back to the fair I will have some more.
The main event of the evening was the tractor pull, a competition which an old friend of mine described as "tractors pull a weight until they can't anymore, and it's loud and muddy." That is a very accurate description. There is a little bit more to it, though. The weight that they push is actually one complicated contraption consisting of a platform with wheels on one end and a moving weight on top connected to chains. As the trucks pull the contraption, wheels turn and the chains move the weight forward. At some point the center of gravity moves forward enough that the tractor can't pull the weight anymore and it's over. Whoever goes the furthest wins.
Loud and muddy it might be, but I enjoyed the experience. It is something like a slow motion race with the winner in each category being decided by inches. And yes, there are many categories, from "just come in from the field" tractors to pick up trucks to souped up machines designed and built exclusively for competing. I was particularly fascinated by the contraption the tractors pull. It is an elaborate machine, with its own engine, wheels that can be lowered and raised and a seat and steering wheel. It amazes me that there is enough of a market for tractor pull weights out there that a company would find it profitable to design, build and sell these things. I'm also impressed someone would buy them, as they do not look cheap.
On my second day at the fair I visited the animal pens. Got to see sheep, their award winning wool already removed; cows surrounded by fans gently blowing on them, several and sundry goats, rabbits and horses. Interestingly enough, there was no poultry. There was, however, someone applying what looked like spray paint to the behind of a bull (but was probably an insect repellent).
There was also a bona-fide animal auction with the auctioneer going a mile a minute. Young kids paraded with their 4H-raised sheep, some of them covered in glitter, while people in the audience raised paddles and the auctioneer shouted numbers. He did say a lot of things in between the numbers, but I think it was mostly babble as not a word was intelligible. Still, it was exactly like I'd seen in the movies and I had a ball.
The third day at the fair was dedicated to fair food and a demolition derby. My goal was to tackle the concession stands and eat as much bad food as I could. This turned out to be one hot dog with an unidentified sausage, onions and peppers, french fries smothered in cheese and a diet Coke. There was a plan to add corn dogs, cotton candy and another funnel cake to this mix, but apparently I am no longer 16 and able to eat anything and everything. My stomach made it quite clear that the hot dog and the fries were more than enough.
After the food it was off to the stands where my nephew, my brother-in-law and I enjoyed my first ever demolition derby. This consisted of way too many cars in a muddy field driving in reverse trying to hit other cars until only one was left. There was the occasional fire, at which point the would stop the derby by waving red flags and using lead pipes to whack cars that refused to stop. The firemen would then rush in and foam the car to death. All in all a grand old time, except for the person behind us in the stands who needed and ambulance because of the fair food.
And that was it for my slice of Americana. It was crowded, noisy, dirty and I look forward to doing it again.
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