A most wonderful season has arrived in Iowa and across the Midwest: County fair time. This weekend there are fairs in Tipton, Marengo, Albia, Avoca, Bedford, Colfax, Eldon, Fort Dodge, Hampton, Harlan, Jefferson, Keosauqua, Knoxville, Leon, Manchester, Marshalltown, Onawa, Osage, Ottumwa, Pocahontas, Primghar, Postville, Sidney, Sigourney, Thompson, Waukon and Winterset. Later this week, nearly two dozen county fairs open, including one in West Liberty.
County fairs hearken back to a seemingly simpler time, to when the state was more rural than urban. They offer a nostalgic escape, to when 4-H blue ribbons marked an honor one notch below being elected mayor and the local National Guard unit actually used the artillery gun displays.
That's not how fairs were meant to be, though.
Back in the days when the Model T and its varying offspring were the way to get around, county fairs served as a showcase of the extreme and exotic: Carnival rides that no one ever would go on again until the fair returned the next year, sideshows of sword-eating men and the world's fattest lady, displays of the best cattle and biggest pumpkins, pie eating contests.
Oh, those things still exist, of course. But we've all taken trips to an Adventureland or Six Flags, and their rides make a county fair midway look quaint. Sideshows have turned politically correct; it's no longer acceptable to gawk at someone who's obese. Selective breeding and genetic modifications make everyone's livestock and crops healthy and large by yesterday's standards. And many of today's kids play solitaire versions of pie-eating contests every day in front of the television.
Still, all of us enjoy a fair. There is that sense of awe among children, to whom everything is new. And for adults, the county fair provides a return to when we were young at heart and in body.
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To many in Iowa and across the Midwest, that youth meant growing up on a farm. The unceasing labor and isolation rural life demanded elevated the county fair's escapist value - riding the Ferris wheel to heights never climbed, seeing people from communities rarely ventured to (always a plus for teenagers), witnessing a menagerie of animals from a range of species and breeds. The county fair held the allure of Christmas, except in this instance you were reduced to the toys' size and interacted with them on their level.
During these grand weeks of mid-July when citified Iowans attend fairs, a longing grows for those days when one could be awed by what seem today like trivialities. Call it a symptom of being inundated by the entertainment that modern technology offers: dozens of cable channels that can take you to Australia, ancient Rome or the center of the galaxy 24-hous a days; computer video games that let you steal cars without worry of ever being arrested; video cell phones so we also can see the latest freeway collision that your friend is witnessing.
We're addicted to the exotic these days, needing something new before we have a chance to get bored. Like the junkie, though, we don't always admit our addiction.
But on occasion we also get the urge to back away from our entertainment fix, to find relief. Life slows as we pass the fields of corn waving in the gentle summer breeze. We are taken back to a time for which the the future has little room.
Nostalgia, in its sugar coating of the past's bitter edges, provides the ultimate detoxicant. It's the time when the carousel's slow spin and dainty horses allows us to relax, when we can feel the simple joy of a rabbit's or lamb's hot breath on our palms as we feed it at the petting zoo, when the pleasure of a tutti fruiti snow cone is enough to remind us that just being alive is good.
(originally published July 18, 2004)
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