Posts Tagged → county fair
It’s summer, have fun
Good antidote to miserable politics, your garden. On the left are cut up peaches from one of our trees, destined for the chest freezer. On the right are a potful of ripe tomatoes and basil, plucked from the garden this evening and destined to become a delicious red sauce.
Cucumbers and tomatoes and a pile of peaches came in from the back yard tonight.
I agree with you, politics is sucking all the air and happiness out of people. Whether you live in Ireland, where the government is clearly working overtime against the vast majority of the citizens who live and come from the Emerald Isle, or you live in America, where the government is clearly working overtime against the interests of all of the people who grew up here or who immigrated here legally, it is evident that democratic processes in every single democratic nation were used to achieve undemocratic outcomes that favor big money interests.
If you like your democracy, and you want to keep your democracy, it is now clear that you will not be allowed to have democracy unless you become just as ruthless as the evil people who are ripping you off.
Wasn’t the whole purpose of representative government to avoid physical violence for political control, and use voting as a substitute? For the better of us all? I guess that attempted murder of President Trump opened a lot of eyes… looks like some bad people are desperate to keep him from getting into office like The People want.
Well, it’s summertime and despite the scary efforts to erase democracy worldwide, we can and should still have fun. Summer county fairs are a wonderful place to spend a hot afternoon and cool evening, with live music and naughty food. I am looking forward to the Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous, which starts this Thursday in Oregon Hill, at the ski place thing. Traditional Archery people come from all around the world to just fling arrows at targets (my favorite is the 3-D Bigfoot at 85 yards), buy new or replacement kit, get a new bow for a special upcoming hunt, or to listen to the archery greats explain their techniques. There’s also trick shooting demonstrations, which really will take your breath away. Serious talent.
And running simultaneously, unfortunately, is the “new” Kempton Gunmakers Fair, in Kempton, PA. This is the replacement for the very long running Dixon’s black powder Rendezvous in the same area. I intend to take some blacksmithing classes on making traditional knives there, as well as check up on how the 62-caliber flintlock British Sporting Rifle is coming along. It’s been in the works for 18 months, so it must be really taking shape. The man making it is a very well known black powder gunmaker. For those who don’t know, these are the kind of guns that require the old fashioned gun powder to be poured down the barrel, and which often have flintlocks with a real piece of flint that makes a spark that lights gunpowder in a pan (“he’s just a flash in the pan” comes from a flash that failed to ignite the main charge of powder you had just poured down the barrel). These are not real dangerous guns. The last time one killed somebody was in 1812 or thereabouts. Although Mark Twain did have a humorous warning about “safe” old guns hung above the fireplace accidentally bagging grandma in her rocking chair. They are not toys, but they are not weapons of modern war, either.
Anyhow, go on an git, git on out to the local county fair, or to some summertime evening live music. Maybe there’s a park waiting for you and someone you care about to go have a picnic. Summer’s just about 2/3 over, and you better git while the gittin’s good.
I have been enjoying working in my garden and fruit trees, when I don’t have to share them with swarms of vermin. Today I watched birds eat four beautiful peaches, despite my attempts to drive them away. The squirrels are on temporary hiatus, probably scheming to come grab everything tomorrow morning before I wake up.
Yay, it’s county fair season
No matter where you live, it is county fair season.
County fairs everywhere are celebrations of community, family, simple pleasures, and simple, easy fun. That fun usually includes eating really naughty, high-fat, high-carb, high sugar food you would never, ever eat any other time of the year, like funnel cakes.
Yum!
If you get the powdered sugar on your funnel cake, don’t take it on a ride until you’ve eaten it, or you will have a white powder imprint of the funnel cake on your face or shirt. Guarantee it. The small-town carnival machines populating county fairs everywhere specialize in jerky motions to entertain the riders, and those jerky motions always catch people unaware, shoving their food right back into their face or chest.
The fresh smell of farm animals there for show mingles with the smells of the fried food, and it is an acquired taste of a smell, I must say.
Last night I was at the Perry County Fair, which I have gone to for years, out near Newport.
Volunteering at the Duncannon Sportsmen booth is a lot of fun, because I get to interact with the happy public, as they good-naturedly try their hands at small games of chance for a non-profit, educational purpose (the club). Such as, when a little kid lines up the little plastic crossbow loaded with the plastic dart, getting them to shoot it at one of the club members’ hat, instead of the deer target that will win them a soft (“plush”) toy. Laughs all around, as the club members good-naturedly take the abuse. The kid gets the toy anyhow.
One thing we are missing is a dunking pool. I’ll work on that for next year, because there are several guys I just really want to see get wet, in public. And no doubt, we could raise a lot of money with a dunking pool. The Duncannon Sportsmen money goes right back into Perry County, like local 4-H, Boy Scouts troops, volunteer fire and ambulance crews, etc. As my folks would say, the money is just making the rounds, going from one hand to another to another and eventually it finds its way right back to where it started. That right there is the essence of community, ‘all in this together’.
And that is probably my biggest enjoyment of local county fairs, including the Gratz Fair in northern Dauphin County, where I live: The sense of community, the ties that bind us all together. In a time of really fractious political rancor, pushed by the establishment media more than anyone (I mean gosh, have you noticed how all the mainstream media outlets have the same exact message, which is 97% hyperventilating and aggressively negative about President Trump, all the time?), isn’t it nice to get a breath of fresh air and hang out with your fellow citizens in an environment of fun and relaxation, away from all that noise?
County fairs are like a big family picnic, where long-lost cousins show up once a year. Friendly people you wouldn’t otherwise see or interact with, but now you do, and you enjoy it, because people are neat. And at county fairs, everyone just wants to have a fun time.
I like that.