In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story

16 Ames County Fair

119 Everyone in Ames County attended the fair. Old timers remembered when the draft horse judging was the major event. Kids in 4-H exhibited calves and cooking and sewing and woodworking projects such as doorstops and chick feeders. Kids too young for 4-H mostly came to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl that jerked them around in a circle and the Loop-de-Loop that turned them upside down and dumped their loose change on the ground. Those with five dollars could take an airplane ride in a big double-wing, open-cockpit plane where the pilot sat in the back and the passenger in front. “Fly you over your farm,” the pilot said as he leaned on a wing, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “See what your place looks like from a crow’s-eye view.” Many people attended the fair for the carnival, featuring games of chance (knock over the milk bottles!), rides like the Ferris Wheel and Merry-Go-Round, and food tents (offering everything from cotton candy to hamburgers with onions). Farmers came to see the lineup of machinery, the new tractors—Allis Chalmers orange, Oliver green, International red, 16 Ames County Fair John Deere green and yellow, Massey-Harris red. In those days huge arguments arose over which was better, red or green—with the focus on John Deere and International. The other tractor makes were minor players, present but not important in any major debate. Farmers climbed on tractor seats, kicked tires, inspected engines , asked the dealer to start them up as they stood watching, listening, and wishing they had the money to buy one of these shiny new machines. These men and their sons, sometimes with wives and daughters , too, walked by the new grain combines that would cut and thresh the grain as the machine rolled across the field. It would replace the threshing machine that made the rounds about this time every year, in mid-August. They peered into the machine, asked how it worked, looked at the price, and then shook their heads. “Don’t think we’d want one of them. What’d happen to the threshing crews if everybody had a combine? Besides, who can afford one?” someone asked. “Threshing machines are a thing of the past,” the dealer standing nearby said. “Thing of the past. Most of the farmers in the southern part of the state, in Dane and Rock and Walworth Counties, have already switched to combines. These farmers swear by them. Say they’ll never go back to threshing. Too much work. Combines make harvesting grain a lot easier.” “Well, this ain’t the southern part of the state,” a grizzled old farmer said, sending a stream of tobacco juice to the ground just to the right of the salesman’s shoes. The salesman jumped a little to the side. “You almost got me,” the salesman said jovially. “Guess I did at that. Aim’s a little off these days,” the farmer said. 120 Ames County Fair 121 Ames County Fair “Here, take one of these folders along with you,” he said, not letting up on his sales pitch. The farmer took the colorful folder and walked away, brushing his big calloused hand across his chin and grinning from ear to ear. He tossed the folder in the nearest trash barrel. The fair opened at the Willow River fairgrounds the third week in August, and the Link Lake Gazette had begun reporting fair-related events weeks earlier. A big supporter of the fair, the paper also included highlights of the previous year’s fair—who had won the cow calling contest, who exhibited the grand champion cucumber entry, and details about other important events that drew people to the fairgrounds each year. The fair started on Thursday, with exhibitors hauling in their entries: cattle, vegetables, field crops, artwork, carpentry projects, paintings, photography, canned fruits, baked bread, cakes, pies, chickens (laying hens, broilers, roasters, and of course roosters, which crowed regularly), geese that began honking with first light of the morning, ducks, hogs, sheep, and horses (both saddle and draft types, although the draft horse numbers were dwindling each year as tractors took over farm work). Except for this partial week in August, the fairgrounds nearly stood empty. County snowplows were stored in the buildings. The community celebrated the Fourth of July and Labor Day at the fairgrounds. But mostly the...