Our Chase County Fair is finished and, as usual, some cute and funny stories emerged during the annual event.
Probably the cutest wuz during the fair’s Pet Parade. County Agent Avery Ware is the emcee for the Pet Parade and he asks the 4-H’ers about their pets, how they care for their pets, if their pets can do tricks, etc.
Well, everything was going along as usual until one youngster brought forth his goldfish in a bowl. During the interview, Avery cleverly asked the youngster if his goldfish could do any tricks.
Equally cleverly, and without missing a beat, the youngster replied, “Sure, it can hold its breath under water for a long time.”
From all the laughing that ensued, I consider the goldfish lucky that its bowl didn’t get spilled and give it a chance to hold its breath out of water.
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This fair story comes from an early middle-ager and dates back a few decades to his early manhood years.
Ol’ Denty Pounder related that he once owned a pickup truck that wuz getting some miles on it. So, when a thunderstorm blew through his farmstead and hailed a bit on the truck, he saw an opportunity to cash in.
So, he and a friend got a pair of ball peen hammers and proceeded to bounce them all over the hood, roof and body of Denty’s old pickup — hoping to simulate extensive hail damage.
And the ruse worked … well, sort of. When Denty filed the damage claim with his insurance company, the adjuster wuz justifiably skeptical about the hail damage on the pickup, but went ahead and authorized the claim.
However, Denty laughingly reported that shortly thereafter, his insurance company cancelled his insurance policy.
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Both Nevah and I entered a few display items at the fair. This year, once again, her entries smoked mine in the judging.
Her “scrappy” quilt earned the reserve grand championship of the quilt class in the open crafts show. Her culinary herbs in the horticulture show, however, failed to measure up and received a white ribbon.
I’m happy to report that both my red potatoes and my white potatoes earned top blue ribbons in the horticulture show. And, my sorry looking plate of tomatoes got just what they deserved. No ribbon. This just wuzn’t the year for “show” tomatoes at Damphewmore Acres. They’re just good “eatin” and canning tomatoes.
Thanks to Nevah’s winnings, we earned enuf of the fair’s premiums to almost pay for lunch somewhere. We had to scrap our plans to use our fair winnings to finance an expensive fall vacation.
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As first-time judges of the cookie jar contest — with eight entries in the 4-H division — Nevah and I had a good time picking the winners and making the placings. My main contribution wuz to do a good job tasting samples of all the cookies entered. Nevah used her “artistic eye” to evaluate the creative jar decorations and presentations.
But, it wuz during the live auction of all the cookie jars that the real payoff came for the 4-H Council. The cookie jar auction totaled more than $1,000.
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And, of course, I did my usual outstanding job of sharing “garbage can” duty at the fair with a pair of good friends. Putting the cans out before the fair is the easy part. Dumping them after the fair is not the most appetizing of jobs — but the job got done and the garbage cans are stored away ready for next year’s fair.
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Sometimes I wonder what the world is coming to. I can’t believe all the news hype about that Minnesota dentist who, while on safari in Africa, shot a renowned lion for a trophy. From the news, you’d think he assassinated a political leader. Two things about that story amaze me. First, why would anyone pay $50,000 to hunt any trophy animal? That’s plain stupid — ranks right up there with paying football coaches millions of dollars, giving baseball players contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, or the multi-millions paid to movie stars and singing artists.
Second, the news stories I heard or read never mentioned that in most of Africa the extravagant fees charged to trophy hunters are used to pay for wildlife conservation programs to benefit wildlife habitat and to hire folks to protect animals from illegal poachers. It’s the sacrifice one, save many approach.
Not sure that those particulars applied to this trophy lion case, however, I can say that these days animals seem to benefit from humans having what I call “Bambi” and “Lion King” complex. Animals are wonderful. They’re beautiful. They’re complicated. They’re enjoyable. Many are lovable. Many are adorable. They are many things to many people, but, bottom line, they are not humans.
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For my “fair” wise words of the week, I’m turning to Jeff Foxworthy. He said, “If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because, after five minutes, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We’re danged near royalty.”
Hope you enjoyed the “Blue Moon” on July 31. I took a good look. At my age, it could be my last look. Have a good ‘un.
