Wednesday Night at the Perry County Fair

At times, I am reluctant to step outside of my social comfort zone. I am an outgoing person who enjoys meeting new people, but when it comes to entertaining myself, I tend to fall into a routine. I guess that’s fine; everyone likes certain bars, restaurants, hangouts, etc., and there’s nothing wrong with that. Still, I know that if I’m going to really do a good job chronicling life in Central Pennsylvania, I’m going to have to do more than write reviews of indie concerts and restaurants in downtown Harrisburg.

That’s why I decided to go to the Perry County Fair.

Honestly, when my friend Evan and I hopped in my Volvo and started up 22/322, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. The two Perry County experts in my office — one a current resident of the county and one an ex-pat — had given me the rundown on the event. Still, I was absolutely convinced that I was going to look like a moron. I am completely agriculturally ignorant. Beyond that, I didn’t want my picture-taking and question-asking — my complete and utter lack of knowledge about things that are important in rural Pennsylvania — to be mistaken for condescension. In the end, I don’t think it was, and a few surly sheep aside, I didn’t seem to offend anybody.

CHECK OUT MY PICTURES FROM THE PERRY COUNTY FAIR ON FLICKR

After looking over the schedule of events for each day of the fair, I had decided that Wednesday night was going to be the best night for me to go. There was pony racing at 6:00, which was intriguing. Also, the Miss Perry County Fair Pageant was at 8:00. I figured that was probably one of the marquee events of the fair.

The pony racing turned out to be something of a disappointment, mostly because I couldn’t find the betting window. The real problem was, that none of the races we watched ended up being all that competitive. No one else at the fair really seemed to be paying too much attention, so we figured that we probably shouldn’t bother either.

The show barn, on the other hand, was an absolute mob-scene. I have a completely irrational fear of farm animals that weigh more than I do, and I felt absurd watching small children handle these humongous beasts so confidently. We watched a little bit of the animal judging, but I really have no idea what separates a blue ribbon winning sheep from the rest of the pack. I assume that the animals are judged against a breed standard like at a dog show, but I could be completely off-base there. I’m also assuming that a blue ribbon is the best kind to get, but there were about eight different sizes and colors of ribbons hanging from stalls all over the barn. Had I planned better, I would have arranged to bring someone along that could have been our guide to the fair. Again, my complete lack of knowledge and my fear of embarrassment kept me from asking one of the many friendly 4-H’ers in attendance what the hell was going on. In the end, it was too packed to move around anyway, so we decided to come back later.

After walking down the main drag of carnival games and food stands, we mingled with the crowd and picked up some outstanding pulled pork sandwiches. I’m no vegetarian, but I have to admit, I was a bit unnerved eating pulled pork less than 100 yards away from prize live pigs. In hindsight, I really hope there is a clear separation between the show barn and the food area. After taking a quick spin through the tractors, looking in the arts and crafts barns and talking to a very friendly fellow who wanted me to blow 100 dollars on a raffle ticket that would win me a gorgeous Harley (They were only selling 300 tickets so my odds were good, and even if I didn’t want to ride it, it would make a nice living room decoration, he told me. He was joking. I guess. Maybe), we headed back to see the crowning of Miss Perry County Fair.

Little did we know, that we took up our positions about an hour and a half too early. The pageant consisted of four pretty, elaborately dressed-up girls who had recently graduated from area high schools. The winner of the pageant took home $500 and the first and second runners up split $500 more, so really, I’m not sure how the field wasn’t closer to 40 or 400. Had I been a 16-20 year old girl, I couldn’t have signed up to be Miss Perry County Fair fast enough. With a wig and a forged birth certificate I might still sign up next year. Then again, in addition to being pretty, a few of the girls evidentially could pull their weight in the barn, and all three were involved in a laundry list of high school activities. That’s a big o-fer in three key categories for me. Four if you count actually being a “Miss.”

After the initial round of on-stage interviews, it was clear to Evan and I that there were really only two legitimate contenders for the title. The first girl was an excellent public speaker, and had a very prim and proper stage demeanor. She was going to college to study to become an obstetrician, which obviously gave her a leg up in the judging. The second girl was bubbly, and funny and clearly had the backing of the crowd. She was going to college to be an elementary school teacher.

The final test was a randomly selected question that each girl had to answer on the spot. Entering the final round, Evan had his money on the future obstetrician and I had the bubbly elementary school teacher. Miss-obstetrician was asked how she would improve the Perry County Fair, and she gave a very polished answer about expanding the show barn. Bubbly elementary school teacher was asked what she would tell girls to encourage them to enter future fair pageants. Unfortunately she faltered a bit in her response, but I still had some hope that her charisma would win over the judges.

We all waited anxiously while the judges tallied their scores. We waited some more. Then the emcee told a joke about a dead horse raffle. We waited. Then a lady came on stage and sang two songs. We waited for a while. Then the pageant organizer talked about the importance of the pageant. The crowd began to grow impatient. Then the emcee gave us bios on each of the judges. The men in the audience started looking at their watches. Then the 2007 Miss Perry County Fair talked about how being the Fair Queen had been the experience of a lifetime. All the while, a teenage couple sucked face ten feet from the right of the stage. We waited some more, tried to ignore the tangled teens and finally, the emcee told us that the 2008 Miss Perry County Fair was… Miss Obstetrician. A deserving winner I’m sure, but I was disappointed. As expected, Miss Elementary School Teacher was first runner up.

After that, we walked around a little bit more, bought some cotton candy (I know, I’m like, six), and went back to the show barn. Things had calmed down a bit, and I actually got to look at some of the animals. In the end, the parking lot had cleared out a lot by the time we left around 10:00. It seemed like everyone went home happy.

As I thought about the fair on the 20-minutes-longer-than-I-would-have-liked ride home, the thing that impressed me the most was the general spirit of community it obviously engenders among the population of Perry County. I liked growing up in Cumberland County, but I really don’t take any particular pride in saying I’m from there. Sure, I’m proud of my hometown, but my county? I certainly never thought of it as a unified whole. Perry County is obviously different. The fair was a celebration of that, and if it was a bit foreign to me, oh well, it wasn’t for me in the first place. That didn’t mean I didn’t have fun though.

Will I go back next year? Maybe. I might even petition them to select a Mr. Perry County Fair. As always, I took some pictures. You can check them out on Flickr.