Across The Fence: County Fair - Fond memories

The sultry month of August brings the last hurrah of summer. The wheat harvest is nearly finished and the combine crews are heading back home. The third cutting of alfalfa is stacked in the barn and the sweet smell of fresh cut hay will linger well into December. The threat of hail is almost passed and hot west winds compete with that day in July when it was hotter than the fourth.

Six-foot-tall stalks of corn wave topknot tassels while threads of corn silk spill from plump, ripening ears. The beginning of a new school year is here and the bittersweet reality of another summer gone is cause for celebration, consternation or melancholy, depending on one's status as a parent, teacher or student. But summers end is not complete without the longstanding ritual of the county fair.

As a youngster growing up in northeast Kansas, the Atchison County Fair was the highlight of the season and marked the end of long, hot days on the hay crew. In my high school days, the opening of the fair was the time to wash and wax Dad's truck, polish the chrome, sweep out the mud and manure from the floorboards and pound the dust out of the seat. It just wouldn't do to pick up a date in a dirty truck.

A summer in the hayfields had bleached my already blonde hair to near white and the Kansas sun had baked my skin to a rugged bronze. No farmer's tan for me, I was brown as a berry from the tops of my ears to the waist of my wranglers and bulging biceps from bucking 10,000 bales of hay were proudly shown off in a crisp white shirt. Us country boys were like Banty roosters strutting down the midway.

The little town of Effingham, that boasted the county sale barn, was the site of the fair. The town park was transformed from a lazy, shade tree picnic ground to a rowdy, bustling carnival with flashing lights, dizzying rides and taunting barkers that could raise ones adrenaline to the point of irrationality. Pride and stubbornness, combined with a hard-earned wad of cash was too often wasted on so-called feats of skill or strength that deep down you knew were rigged, but they still suckered you in. How many times had I watched someone try and fail to knock down those three, sawdust stuffed, dummies, or the lead weighted wooden milk bottles? But still I tried. Determined that I could beat the odds and win that Teddy Bear or some other meaningless trinket. I tried until I remembered, and then I quit and never tried again.

It must have been the summer of my seventh or eighth year. Dad and Mom took my sister Carol and me to the county fair. I'm certain that it was the first time I had ever been and I was thoroughly seduced by the glitz and glitter of the midway. There were toys and trinkets that I had never seen before and hordes of people crowded around booths, handing over dollar bills that the barker held between his fingers, a green bouquet of someone else's hard-earned cash.

Some would lose the challenge then shrug their shoulders and walk away, stuffing their hands into their pockets as if to hold in whatever cash might be left. Others would give a victory shout as they punched the air with a fist. But the prize would be a penny whistle, a toy cricket or a Chinese finger trap, never the three foot tall stuffed Teddy Bear that hung beneath the canopy. I watched, but the realization of what was happening didn't sink in until much later.

I wanted a knife. I wanted a knife more than anything else in the world. Grandpa Zeek had given me his old Barlow that I used to cut the bale strings when I helped feed the cattle, but I wanted a big knife. My Uncle David had several knives and I envied him for having them. He had a leather-handled Western with a six-inch blade and he carried it in a leather sheath on his belt. I wanted one just like it. It was more than desire it was an obsession.

There was a booth on the midway that was basically a ring toss game. Wooden hoops were thrown with the object of landing over a peg that had various prizes tied to it. Some of the pegs were small dowels, not much bigger than a broomstick and others were as big as a two-by-four, standing on end. I watched as people handed over their dollars in exchange for two wooden hoops to be tossed over a peg and a prize won.

On one of the two-by-four pegs was tied one of the most handsome knives I had ever seen. The knife was displayed outside of its tooled leather sheath and the polished steel blade sparkled under the flashing lights that circled the canopy above the booth. The handle was bone or maybe deer antler, gleaming white as ivory, with dark lines running through the length of the handle. The butt of the handle was topped with a polished piece of metal as bright as the blade. Now, I didn't want just any knife, I wanted that knife!

"Let me try. Please!" I begged for a dollar and a chance to win that knife. I knew I could do it. I had played a ring toss game at school with a loop of rope and a wooden peg and was actually quite good at it. I knew I could win that knife.

Mom gave in fairly easily. Perhaps it was also the excitement of the midway that captured her as well. I knew a dollar was a lot of money, but a knife like that had to be almost priceless, at least I thought so.

I stood on tiptoe to get a clear view of the peg that held my knife and tossed the first wooden ring. It hit the peg and bounced to the ground. "Almost!" the barker shouted, "Take your time sonny."

I stood as tall as I could, stretching and leaning against the chest-high counter, reaching my arm as far out as I could. With a deliberate flip of my wrist I sent the second ring straight to the target and it also bounced off and landed over a smaller peg next to the knife. "A winner!" the barker announced to those who stood around watching and handed me a little toy airplane. The plastic airplane had a wingspan of about three inches; it was green in color and had a tiny red propeller on each wing. On the bottom of one wing were the words, "Made in Japan." I left the toy airplane on the counter and asked Mom for another dollar.

Getting the second dollar wasn't as easy as getting the first but I suppose with my begging and the excitement of the carnival she gave in. The next two rings tossed also missed their intended mark and both fell to the ground. "Too bad," the barker said as he shook his head. "Here, try one on me." That ring also bounced off the knife and landed over a peg with a tin clicker shaped like a frog.

"Please Mom, please," I begged for another chance. Her resolve was almost unbroken when the barker told her that he would let me sit on the counter. Another dollar changed hands.

Sitting on the counter I could almost touch the front row of pegs. I leaned as far forward as I could, tossed the first ring and missed. "Almost," the barker sighed as he took a ring from under the counter and slid it easily over the peg with the knife. "See, nice and easy and it'll slip right over," he promised. It didn't.

I was crying as Mom lifted me off the counter and set me down on the crushed grass. I felt sick to my stomach and hurt so badly inside. I must have though I might die if I couldn't have that knife. I don't remember how many dollars my mom sacrificed for me to have a chance at that silly knife. In the end, I saw her talking to the barker as she handed him more dollars. He reached under his counter and handed her a knife.

When she bent down to give me the knife I grabbed her neck and hugged her tight. I should have said, "thank you."

The knife that she had bought from the barker, for who knows how many dollars, was a cheap, tin, hollow handled knife with a blade of soft metal in a plastic sheath. It was nothing at all like the knife on the peg. I knew right away that we had been duped and that my obsessive greed had been duly rewarded.

Was it five dollars, maybe ten that Mom gave away, sacrificed for me, for no better reason than to give me the hope of achieving a dream, regardless of how foolish it might have been? At a time when gas was 12 cents a gallon and bread was a dime a loaf, I suppose that knife was almost priceless and so was the lesson learned.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. To contact Tim, email; [email protected]