Beginning when I was 7 or 8, my mom made sure each of us kids entered stuff in the Polk County Fair - crafts we had done in school or scouts, cookies, flower arrangements. It was something to do during the summer, and an opportunity to create and participate (my mom liked to keep us three kids occupied the best she could - we joined the summer reading program at the library in our small town, took swimming lessons and gymnastics, visited the teddy bear lady, which is a whole other story.) I loved it. I loved creating a flower arrangement with a theme. I loved standing in line and offering up my synthetic woven potholder or my God's eye of yarn and popsicle sticks or my 5th grade essay on the Beluga whale to the ladies who made sure my entry tag was filled out with my name and address and then properly folded over so judging could be anonymous. I loved heading to the Arts and Crafts building the first morning of the fair, the scent of hay from the surrounding fields in the air, to see if I had won any blue ribbons, red ribbons, or black, third place ribbons.
This continued throughout high school for me. My older sister and younger brother had given it all up, but my mom and I would still line up to submit our items. Then I went to college, my parents moved to a different state, and I forgot all about the Polk County Fair - until 13 years later, and had been living in Portland for 8 years. I went to the Clackamas County Fair and was reminded of my love of the old-fashioned, sturdy world of community crafts and livestock and flower submissions. There is always something new and interesting to see at a fair. Like a watermelon spitting contest.
Or a bunny obstacle course.
Or giant fruit.
Or crafty scarecrows, made out of old car and tractor parts that may be lying around your yard.
This is why I love the fair and the people that make it happen by creating stuff and then standing in a line to give it to a lady who will put a tag on it; so we all get to see it.
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