Judgment Day
This time of year, scattered across the midwest, there will be hundreds of county fairs popping up on what is desolate land every other week of the year. There will be midways littered with toothless, tattooed carnies. There will be amusement rides of questionable stability. There will be rabbits in hutches, cows in stalls, and horses in barns. There will be children running amuck with cotton candy and elephant ears. There will be middle-aged women in denim jumpers and plaited hair. And in one of those county fairs, there will be me.
The county fair is to rural northwestern Wisconsin what Fashion Week is to Manhattanites. Parents herd their broods to cheer grandpa on in the tractor pull. Locals laugh behind the backs of the women who wear white to the demolition derby. 4-Hers, who make up nearly half of any given class at school, spend the entire week either volunteering at the 4-H food stand or competing in showmanship of livestock. It is about the only tradition with which I was raised. It is all about connecting.
As a child, the county fair wowed me. I'd stroll down the midway, hypnotized by the crazy neon lights. They were just colored lights, but they drew me in. They'd convince me that I truly wanted to win some tacky paper-framed Aerosmith mirror. That I just had to have the feathers attached to the roach clip. That if I picked that one special duck, I wouldn't be stuck with another Chinese finger trap. That somehow, this was what life was about. It was, for me, one of the major events in my childhood.
Starting at age seven, I spent every week leading up to the fair with my maternal grandmother. It was the kind of camp you'll never see in today's times. No video games, no internet, no extreme sports or cable television. It was just a week with my grandmother and the McNeill-Lehrer News Hour. On the way home from picking me up (we lived an entire 15 miles from one another) for the week, we'd stop by the county agricultural fair office to pick up our premium book. The newsprint pages categorically listed, as they do today, every class and division for entering items to be judged. When we arrived at her home, my grandmother and I would sit at her Duncan-Phyfe table, she with her Sanka, and I with my Tang. She'd pull out a red pen and a stenographer's tablet and page by page, we'd start deciding what our projects for the week would be.
The next day, with a list in hand, we would drive to the Red Owl grocery store to buy any ingredients we were missing. She almost always bought me a few treats, that my parents could never afford at home, like Capri Sun and Fruit Roll-Ups. Then, we'd drive up the block to the Ben Franklin ("the dime store," she had called it), and pick out our "yard goods" for anything we were sewing. The first few days were spent making clothes. I would attempt to sew something basic, like a skirt, and she would help me correct my mistakes. We'd take our time and make sure that our entries were hung with care on the hangers and properly stored in garment bags. I'd fill out the entry tag and carefully seal our names under the flap for anonymity.
Two days before open class judging, we'd begin our baking spree. We usually started with the fruit and vegetable breads, since they stayed fresh a little more easily. Then we made cookies and hot crossed buns and garlic knots and bars. The morning of judging, we'd rise at 3:00 AM to get started on the last of the yeast breads. We'd make two loaves of each bread and decide which of the two was the best representative of our work. We did not have food processors or bread machines, so we would knead everything by hand on a canvas-topped piece of oak. She taught me an easy way of kneading breads in bulk, and my hands to this day, automatically move in that same pattern the minute they touch a malleable dough. She taught me how to roll a ball of dough gently on the curve of skin between my thumb and forefinger, creating a seamless sphere of yeasty perfection. She would cast watchful glances and remind me not to use too much flour, or the bread would get too dry and crumbly.
Then we'd shower, and off we would go, smelling like pink Dove soap and Flex conditioner, to the Burnett County Fair. With the backseat of her beige Ford Taurus piled high with entries, we'd take our time around the curves of Highway 48, so as not to disturb any of the delicate baked goods. Conversation would be kept to a minimum, only verbally checking off everything on our list.
Once judging commenced, we'd walk around the fairgrounds together and look at the animals. We'd eat at the 4-H Food Stand, and then share a baker's dozen of mini donuts before heading back to see the results of our hard work.
Down in the basement of my house, now more than ten years since my last week of camp at Grandma's, there is a box of red, white, blue and purple ribbons. Each one of them a physical reminder of those beautiful summers with a woman who represents all I hope to grow to be. There must be nearly two hundred ribbons. On the back, marked in pen, is a detailed caption of what entry earned the ribbon. The blue for first place, the red for second, and the white for third. The purple ribbons were reserved for the overall champion of each category. Topped with a large rosette, this is the most coveted ribbon of any county fair. It's the one the crowd looks at first when passing through the exhibits. It's the one that boasts who outperformed everyone else in the county. My grandmother and I brought home about 50 of those purple ribbons for our work over the years. Each time filled with the same excitement one would feel if Publisher's Clearing House knocked at the door with a giant cardboard check.
One week from today, I'll rise at 3:00 AM, put in six hours of hard work and then sit in the Home Arts Building at the LaPorte County Fair. I'll be surrounded by homemakers and random onlookers and I'll be watching with a sharp eye for any inkling of opinion from the judge. I'll have put in long hours and made countless loaves. They won't be back my grandmother, but it will sure feel good to try.
The county fair is to rural northwestern Wisconsin what Fashion Week is to Manhattanites. Parents herd their broods to cheer grandpa on in the tractor pull. Locals laugh behind the backs of the women who wear white to the demolition derby. 4-Hers, who make up nearly half of any given class at school, spend the entire week either volunteering at the 4-H food stand or competing in showmanship of livestock. It is about the only tradition with which I was raised. It is all about connecting.
As a child, the county fair wowed me. I'd stroll down the midway, hypnotized by the crazy neon lights. They were just colored lights, but they drew me in. They'd convince me that I truly wanted to win some tacky paper-framed Aerosmith mirror. That I just had to have the feathers attached to the roach clip. That if I picked that one special duck, I wouldn't be stuck with another Chinese finger trap. That somehow, this was what life was about. It was, for me, one of the major events in my childhood.
Starting at age seven, I spent every week leading up to the fair with my maternal grandmother. It was the kind of camp you'll never see in today's times. No video games, no internet, no extreme sports or cable television. It was just a week with my grandmother and the McNeill-Lehrer News Hour. On the way home from picking me up (we lived an entire 15 miles from one another) for the week, we'd stop by the county agricultural fair office to pick up our premium book. The newsprint pages categorically listed, as they do today, every class and division for entering items to be judged. When we arrived at her home, my grandmother and I would sit at her Duncan-Phyfe table, she with her Sanka, and I with my Tang. She'd pull out a red pen and a stenographer's tablet and page by page, we'd start deciding what our projects for the week would be.
The next day, with a list in hand, we would drive to the Red Owl grocery store to buy any ingredients we were missing. She almost always bought me a few treats, that my parents could never afford at home, like Capri Sun and Fruit Roll-Ups. Then, we'd drive up the block to the Ben Franklin ("the dime store," she had called it), and pick out our "yard goods" for anything we were sewing. The first few days were spent making clothes. I would attempt to sew something basic, like a skirt, and she would help me correct my mistakes. We'd take our time and make sure that our entries were hung with care on the hangers and properly stored in garment bags. I'd fill out the entry tag and carefully seal our names under the flap for anonymity.
Two days before open class judging, we'd begin our baking spree. We usually started with the fruit and vegetable breads, since they stayed fresh a little more easily. Then we made cookies and hot crossed buns and garlic knots and bars. The morning of judging, we'd rise at 3:00 AM to get started on the last of the yeast breads. We'd make two loaves of each bread and decide which of the two was the best representative of our work. We did not have food processors or bread machines, so we would knead everything by hand on a canvas-topped piece of oak. She taught me an easy way of kneading breads in bulk, and my hands to this day, automatically move in that same pattern the minute they touch a malleable dough. She taught me how to roll a ball of dough gently on the curve of skin between my thumb and forefinger, creating a seamless sphere of yeasty perfection. She would cast watchful glances and remind me not to use too much flour, or the bread would get too dry and crumbly.
Then we'd shower, and off we would go, smelling like pink Dove soap and Flex conditioner, to the Burnett County Fair. With the backseat of her beige Ford Taurus piled high with entries, we'd take our time around the curves of Highway 48, so as not to disturb any of the delicate baked goods. Conversation would be kept to a minimum, only verbally checking off everything on our list.
Once judging commenced, we'd walk around the fairgrounds together and look at the animals. We'd eat at the 4-H Food Stand, and then share a baker's dozen of mini donuts before heading back to see the results of our hard work.
Down in the basement of my house, now more than ten years since my last week of camp at Grandma's, there is a box of red, white, blue and purple ribbons. Each one of them a physical reminder of those beautiful summers with a woman who represents all I hope to grow to be. There must be nearly two hundred ribbons. On the back, marked in pen, is a detailed caption of what entry earned the ribbon. The blue for first place, the red for second, and the white for third. The purple ribbons were reserved for the overall champion of each category. Topped with a large rosette, this is the most coveted ribbon of any county fair. It's the one the crowd looks at first when passing through the exhibits. It's the one that boasts who outperformed everyone else in the county. My grandmother and I brought home about 50 of those purple ribbons for our work over the years. Each time filled with the same excitement one would feel if Publisher's Clearing House knocked at the door with a giant cardboard check.
One week from today, I'll rise at 3:00 AM, put in six hours of hard work and then sit in the Home Arts Building at the LaPorte County Fair. I'll be surrounded by homemakers and random onlookers and I'll be watching with a sharp eye for any inkling of opinion from the judge. I'll have put in long hours and made countless loaves. They won't be back my grandmother, but it will sure feel good to try.