Fair reports

Advertisement: Bootsie and I will be on display at the Keokee booth in the main exhibit building today from 3-6 p.m. We'll happily sell books and even more happily autograph them.

So, that announcement made, on to more fair stuff. I did see Bootsie there yesterday afternoon while taking my solo venture through the fair. I went alone so that I could see the exhibits. My mission failed sadly because I didn't see nearly as much as I wanted.

In my wandering, however, I did observe that a lot fewer cows came to the fair this year. Most of those in the beef barn will be sold for beef steaks and hamburger at tonight's fat stock sale.

I can remember when that beef barn was always filled to the brim with open class and 4-H stock and a few mini critters. This year there are entire aisles empty. Times have changed, I guess.

I didn't make it to the sheep and pig barns because it was raining, and I got pretty wet waiting for my lukewarm cup of coffee at one of the outdoor food booths. Seems the lightning strikes shut down the electricity for a while. Then, the lady was running low on propane to run her stove. So, I stood there in the rain waiting for her to try to warm it up somehow.

While I waited, she asked me if I'd ever made a funnel cake. I said no. She wanted to know because her booth advertised funnel cakes for $4. She was seeking advice because she'd never made a funnel cake either, and she was having a hard time getting the right consistency of dough to plop in the deep fry which wasn't frying at the moment.

Turns out she just bought the concession trailer and was enduring baptism by deep fry. I guess she figured I might be able to give her some funnel cake pointers. She figured wrong.

I moved on to the brat shack where all those delectable forms of brats in buns are sold. I asked the new proprietors if they were doing as good a job as their predecessor. They assured me that all that had changed was the faces. Their predecessor must have done a better job orienting them into cooking brats than whoever sold that booth to the funnel cake lady.

When Jason of Brat Booth mentioned that he worked for Waste Management while not cooking brats, I noted the irony of having mentioned another Waste Management employee in my blog yesterday, all the time observing him and thinking he sure did look a lot like Jeff Penskover.

Turns out Jason is Jeff's older brother, and he lured him away from Schwan's to Waste Management several years ago. Since that time, Jeff has been lured away to Micron Computers in Boise. That familiarity is going to seal Bill's confidence in the fact that the brats are as good as ever.

The rain continued so I went back into the main exhibit building to look at exhibits. Instead, I just kept running into people and talking too much. During one visit, Bootsie informed me that his driving habits have changed since he entered his 70s.

He says he used to drive down the road and spend more time looking at all the stuff in the fields alongside the road rather than looking straight ahead. He said he managed to keep his rigs between the lines, but lately he's noticed that whenever his eyes go a-straying, his vehicles follow suit. So, he no longer looks left or right---just straight down that roadway.

That revelation got me to figuring out the mystery of why all the old people I've known for a hundred years don't wave at me out on the roadways anymore. Something must happen when they pass into a new decade because I have noticed that most elderly drivers are so busy hugging that steering wheel and looking straight ahead that they can't be bothered with returning a wave to a younger old friend.

I guess that's why it's getting so lonely out on the roads anymore. Used to be everybody waved. For a long time, I was blaming the tinted windows and all those strangers who had moved to town. Now, after talking to Bootsie, I have to add a whole new demographic to the mix of seemingly unfriendly folks.

At the fair, however, I noticed that old people like the visiting as much as everyone else. I won't say who was old and who was young on my visiting list yesterday cuz I don't want to get in trouble with anyone, least of all, George Eskridge, who was looking left, right and straight ahead for all potential voters.

George even gave me a political chocolate chip cookie with a catchy message attached.

Eat this now,
Or eat this later.
Keep Eskridge
As your legislator.

Let George do it

His wife Janice did the baking and the poetry. Now, I don't know about that last line. It lacks the lovely iambic rhythm of the first four. Plus, it's a little vague to me. Nonetheless, I've got the cookie, and I assured George that I would do my job.

Speaking of cookies, I did learn a little about the exhibits in the midst of all my chatting. My cantaloupe and my cookies both earned blue ribbons. I will come clean and announce that mine was the only cantaloupe in the Bonner County Fair, so the competition was pretty easy. My three stems of oregano earned a white ribbon.

The zucchini had the most competition. Does that come as any surprise? Disappointingly, I noticed that all the zucchini is still there. I was hoping someone would pilfer mine and take it home for those medicinal powers I mentioned the other day. Guess I haven't gotten the word out enough.

One of the more exciting revelations of my trip to the fair was to learn that Grace also won a blue ribbon on her cookies. So, we're even for 2008. She was happy about that but expecially thrilled that her pillow won a blue ribbon and grand champion in the youth sewing category. Way to go, Grace!

Well, I'm going back to the fair today to sell some books and learn more from Bootsie about habits of the elderly. So, I'd better get moving, go pick some beans and get some other work done. Rose Marie and I are meeting at 2 at the brat stand.

So, if you're there, join us, buy a brat, and we'll talk. Then, follow me to the Keokee booth, and buy some books!

Note: Annie has some new photos posted on her (http://www.nnlove.blogspot.com/) site, and Jim at (http://www.footlaunchedfreeflyinfool.blogspot.com/) got to fly yesterday. Check 'em out.