I’m a bit of an oddity around here. Well for many reasons, but this week it’s because I didn’t attend the Iowa State Fair. Nearly everyone I know is there, or has been there for at least a day – with smiles as bright as the sunshine in their posted photos.
The fair is in its final days for 2016, ending a fair season that started just after the 4th of July with county fairs across the state.
I’ve covered fairs for years – took pictures of every kid with their ribbon and animal for the local paper, gave live reports and interviews for the radio station, even wrote a full-length magazine feature on a year’s worth of inner workings of the county fair board.
One could say I began my journalism career at a county fair. It was 1972 and I was visiting my sister in Grand Island, Nebraska, when my brother-in-law Dale Johnson, then the new Ag Editor at the Grand Island Independent, took me along to cover the Nance County fair. I was 15 and it was a nice fair as I recall. I don’t know as I did much but carry the camera case, but it must of left its mark.
These days I’m just thankful I don’t have to go. As a spectator sport, the appeal of the fair, like mega-concerts, wanes with age as I preclude most outings with an assessment of the weather, size and temperament of the crowd, and adequate and accessible parking.
Yes, I know the fair is a celebration of agriculture, and as one often employed by that industry I should relish the exposure. I do. I think it’s a great thing. I just prefer to pay my homage to ag at my air-conditioned dinner table.
Doing a lot of work in the beef and sheep industry, it’s not unusual to run across someone who is shocked to learn I didn’t grow up showing livestock. It seems to be all the rage these days to use that as a professional qualification. I’m not sure how that gives one journalism chops, but I guess it does speak to familiarity with animals.
I was a 4-H kid, but not a livestock kid. My 4-H dreams pretty much centered around the next piece of furniture to go under the sander belt. (And occasionally I made a batch of banana bread and succumbed to sewing classes, a valiant attempt by my mother and aunt that never did take.)
Unlike those who spent their youth cleaning fair barn stalls, my singular experience in the show ring was the Celebrity Steer Show at the Union County Fair when I worked for KSIB. (A move Chad probably still regrets.)
But that doesn’t mean I’m a stranger to livestock, or to the realities of livestock production.
I grew up on the farm. We raised corn, beans, oats, hay, cattle, hogs and chickens. Primarily. I fed the horses and chickens, gathered eggs, caught and cooped chickens for the next days’ butchering. I rode along to the pasture to check cattle and put out mineral block. I fed an occasional bottle calf and cuddled newborn piglets under a heat lamp in the basement. I picked up a little hay, and I am well skilled in rounding up and driving hogs back through the hole from which they most recently escaped.
I know the reverent feeling of holding rich, black loam in your hand; and I understand the meaning of the furrowed brow that accompanies the noon markets on the kitchen radio.
But, no, I didn’t spend my youth in the hallowed livestock barn isles. Not because I had any aversion to it. I guess I was just busy elsewhere.
I will admit I can’t go to a county or state fair without a trip through the barns. And, through the years, I have always made sure I took every accompanying friend there – whether they wanted to go or not.
But I live in southwest Iowa. If I want to see a cow or a pig, I can walk a few blocks to the edge of town. I don’t need to drive and park and fight crowds for the experience – even if there may be a shrimp corndog and nutty bar calling my name. If I really feel the urge, I can fashion a miniature cow out of the stick of butter in my refrigerator, or serve my lunch on a stick.
The fair is great fun, with endless entertainment. There truly is something for everyone, whether you go for a day or a week; whether you get there in a car or a pick-up pulling a trailer. So my best wishes to all you fair-goers. I sincerely hope you have the time of your life.
And I hope you don’t mind if I just stay home and watch the highlights on the TV news.