The County Fair

October 21, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

Anyone who ever lived in a small town knows the joy that the annual county fair brings. People look forward to its coming for months, if only to break up the mundane. Bright lights, whirring rides, colorful people, smells (both good and bad), objects of little value but great desire – all of these things and more invade a common town and for just a little while, make it extraordinary. So it has always been in Portsong when the Buxley County Fair is held on a hallowed patch of ground called Hargit’s Field. No one quite knows how the fair was wrestled away from the larger cities nearby. But with the exception of the war years, it has always been held in our little town.

Much of the history of the fair has been chronicled for posterity. Stories of the wild rides, blue ribbon contests, and the human oddities that have been witnessed in Hargit’s Field have become legendary. But to capture the folksy flavor of the true county fair, I take you back to the fair of 1922 as archived in the September 8^th edition of the Portsong Guardian. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Controversy Reigns as Miss Corrine’s Cobbler Does Not

In what many have referred to as the biggest surprise since the hailstorm of 1897, Miss Corrine Deaton failed to win her eleventh straight blue ribbon in the Pie Contest. She took home the red as runner up with her famous Peach Dream Cobbler. Coming in first was newcomer Hazel Gruber with her delicious Blackberry Delight. Congratulations to Mrs. Gruber, who just moved to our fair city all the way from Warblers Ridge.

The white ribbon was awarded to Mrs. Myrna Culpepper, who ended the day nearly as bitter as a slice of her rhubarb pie. After finishing second to Miss Corrine for a decade, she was quoted as saying, “serves her right – everyone knows a cobbler isn’t a pie anyway!”

On to the livestock events where in less dramatic fashion, Sherman Peas won the Hog Calling Contest by a unanimous decision. After hearing his grunts and chortles, every judge was inclined to go his way.

For the little ones, the goat-roping competition was head-butting good time until Wilmur Clegg’s billie got loose on the midway shutting down the rides for twenty minutes. Unfortunately, Smitty Robbins girl, little Esther, was at the apex of the Ferris wheel when it stopped and her weak stomach became a serious problem for those below.

All in all, this year’s fair was a wonderful event and we here at The Guardian hope the next three hundred and fifty-nine days fly by.

Colonel Birdwhistle’s Constant Hat

October 15, 2013.Reading time 5 minutes.

The children here in Portsong constantly ask why my head is rarely found without a cover and you might be wondering the same thing. So please, sit beside me here on the yellow bench and I’ll tell you my story. It may surprise you to know that although my face is full of whiskers, the dome above my beard has nary a hair upon it. This all started when I was but a young Captain in His Majesty’s service in Africa. In those days, I rarely had the chance to look into a mirror. But somewhere along the line, I believe when I was in my thirties, I noticed my forehead had started to grow taller. Being young, I didn’t think a thing of it until my forehead had grown so high it stretched over the top of my head. Within a year, I had lost all of the ruddy hair I had brought into the world.

Hearing this, you might assume I now wear hats because I am vain. Rubbish! That is not the case. I don’t at all mind being bald. Since I am told he knows every hair – or lack thereof, I assume I have exactly as many as God intends me to have. Looking down, he sees my head’s reflection much more than I do. If my head is fine by him, then it is fine by me.

My zeal for hats came about quite by accident. It so happened, the unit in my command drew a patrol assignment that had us pitching camp in the savannah for a fortnight. We had done this many times. We knew the dangers and how to avoid them. After one particularly draining day, I bedded down under the dark African sky. How I loved sleeping in the open air – the vast grass expanse on all sides covered only by a blanket of deep blue heaven dotted with millions of tiny stars. Wild sounds and strange smells that kept a new recruit awake had become a soothing lullaby to me. On this night, I had no trouble finding sleep and rested comfortably until I was roused by a feather tickling my nose. I opened my eyes to see my alarmed men staring at me, obviously unsure of what to do.

The feather in my nose was surrounded by others and connected to a two-hundred pound bird perched just above my head, ready to sit. Whilst I slept, she had scratched the grass and straw around me into a crude nest and now decided it was time to try it out. The men had their rifles at the ready, but wouldn’t shoot with my head so near the target. Fortunately, just before she plopped on top of me, a sharp young private fired a warning shot into the air making her squawk so loud she took part of my hearing with her as she fled into the night. But that wasn’t the last we saw of her and her maternal instincts. Convinced my head was her egg, the relentless ostrich followed us for two weeks trying to sit on me any time I came to rest. Although they wouldn’t laugh around their superior officer, my men found it hilarious. (In the course of time, I had to agree…it was quite funny.)

When we finally returned to our post, the forlorn bird disappeared and I took up the habit of wearing hats. Not all are for protection, some are simply for style. After an incident with a certain young lad here in town, I have often returned to wearing my pith helmet for safety. But that is a story for a different day.

And now you know why Colonel Clarence J. Birdwhistle is rarely found without a hat.