Farm Kids

I had my first schedule conflict as a retired person today. While working I had schedule conflicts all the time, so many that I’d make one appointment, miss another, and not realize till later I’d blown something else off. I expected few if any conflicts after I stopped working. In Saturday’s mail I received a thank you for agreeing to be a judge at the LaSalle County 4-H fair, and a reminder to be there at 10 a.m. on Thursday July 11. During my last week of work I responded by e mail to the John Howard Association confirming that I would be part of the team that visited IYC Kewanee on July 11, showing up at the gate at 10:00 a.m. IYC Kewanee is a juvenile prison downstate on past Ottawa on Route 80 and South. I had visited IYC Kewanee years ago and wanted to return in order to see if it had improved over time. But obviously I couldn’t do both. I decided to keep my commitment as a food judge for the 4-H kids. Heck, I was a 4-H kid once. John Howard would have other folks on the team visiting Kewanee but I wasn’t sure the people at University of Illinois Extension could find another food judge on short notice.

After reading the 4-H letter I remember Margaret Anderson’s phone call long, long ago. It’s so easy to say yes to things three months in advance. Who knows what they’re doing that far ahead? I’ve always thought that people that plan ahead take special advantage of people like me who don’t. Why Margaret thought me qualified to be a food judge I don’t know, except that people know I like to cook and enjoy eating. My kids would laugh knowing I was judging food. I once imagined out loud at the family dinner table that I might become a food critic. My son Dean immediately sounded off by saying

“Dad, you would make a terrible food critic.”

“What are you talking about Dean? Why do you say that?”

“Because you like everything. I can see it now. Everything you taste would get five stars. When is the last time you had a bad meal?”

I pondered that, maybe a bit too long.

“See? Exactly what I’m talking about. Dave McClure, food critic who thinks everything edible is wonderful.” We got a good laugh out of that one.

So I go to the fairgrounds on the South Side of Ottawa at the appointed time and become part of a bevy of activity in one of the exhibition barns. I find Margaret seated at a table amid lots of forms and clipboards and she puts me to work, pairing me up with Carol Elmore, retired home economics teacher from Mendota. I know Carol from another organization to which we both belong. Carol and I are assigned the microwave fudge entries, the microwave crumb coffee cake, microwave carrot cake, and a number of other categories. You get the idea. It was required that we taste each offering and then rate them using a checklist of criteria individualized for every type of food. Pretty elaborate if you ask me. We did all desserts. The kids had to plan a menu around the dish they presented that contained all the food groups. Some of them did so in great detail. So not only did Carol and I eat little bites of a whole lot of desserts, we imagined them as part of bigger more sumptuous meals. The whole experience made me hungry. It took about an hour to complete our task. I have to say Carol and I were pretty easy on the 4-Hers whose projects we judged. A lot of them were twelve year old kids. For all we knew it was their first try at competitive cooking. So we gave them the benefit of the doubt, except for example the kid whose carrot cake was absolutely uncooked in the center and the girl who left the apples out of her microwave apple brownies. Pretty hard to recommend blue ribbons for those.

I left the exhibition barn and made my way to the lemon shake up stand, where a homemade lemonade drink was only a buck. Lemonade in hand I moseyed down to the livestock barns. Some of the cattle were just coming in so I wasn’t able to see everything. I used to take my kids to this fair when they were little. They always liked seeing the small animals, rabbits and chickens and such while I gravitated towards the animals we had on our farm, the jersey dairy cows and the sheep. There is much less livestock on area farms these days, especially cattle and hogs, with so many farmers specializing in grain only. I didn’t expect to see Jersey cows. If there are dairy cows around they are nearly always Holstein. But as I walked into the diary barn there standing before me were three Jersey heifers, the only dairy cows at the fair that morning, chewing their cuds. Springing heifers I believe. It took me back. They’re such pretty cows. So much of my first eighteen years was spent caring for and being with these animals that I somehow felt at home in their presence.

I was a twelve year old kid at the McLean county Fair with a heifer like this one fifty years ago. I’d tell you what I named her but her name was the same as the receptionist at YSB today and I don’t want to Janet to feel bad. I’d taught my heifer to lead with a halter, taken special care of her, clipped her carefully before the fair and given her a good bath the day before the show. It was my first time in the show ring. I didn’t get a blue ribbon but it was OK. I just loved being off the farm and at the fair.
I started looking more closely at the kids at the fair yesterday. Farm kids. 4-H officials always talk about recruiting more city kids into 4-H, and they probably have, but the fair still belongs to farm families. The Pearse family was there. Tom and Carol farm and raise Hereford cattle out in Deer Park. Their kids are married now. Whenever I see Carol she reminds me that her daughter Mary became a special education teacher because she worked as a teacher’s assistant for my wife Colleen, a special Ed teacher at Ottawa High. Mary lives in Galva now and has a family of her own.

Dick Fricke was there, also from a farm in Deer Park Township, judging something or just helping out. I ran in to Delbert and Michelle Rich who reported their kids had lots of projects at the fair. They live on a farm up by Mendota. Michelle used to work at YSB. They were unloading a crate of chickens. Their kids were “somewhere” according to Michelle. I didn’t get to meet them. We talked a while, then I made my way to the food hall operated by one of the local 4-H clubs and had a hot roast beef plate complete with homemade rhubarb pie and milk for only six bucks. While I was in the lunch line I ran into someone that I didn’t know, but she knew me. I hate it when that happens. I think at any moment I’ll remember her name but I don’t.

After lunch I killed time on a bench under a shade tree close to the food hall. Kids were walking by in groups of two or three, goofing around, looking at each other, being kids. I remember at the fair wanting to know where other kids were from. I went to a small school and we were around each other so much, the Danvers kids, that it was a big deal to see new kids. Gridley kids, El Paso kids, Minier kids, Lexington. I knew a few boys from playing sports against other schools but there were so many new kids at the fair. And girls. Farm kids, at least farm kids like me, weren’t around other kids much. All summer we were out there in the country, working, taking care of animals, wishing we were at the fair. When we got to the fair we were gawky. It looked to me yesterday as if little has changed. Sure they have ear buds now, stare at their smart phones and text, but they’re still kids hungry to experience the world outside their own.

That’s about all I did yesterday. It was a great day, for a Thursday.