A Deep River Year 
August 27, 2014   

The last weekend of summer, just before the school buses start running, is always the Chester Fair.   The Fair Season in Connecticut runs from late August into October.   It is a lingering remnant of the agrarian communities that once flourished up and down our river valleys, where time was measured by planting and sowing, cultivating and harvest.  As the growing season came to an end, folks would gather to celebrate with food and music, displays of their produce and good-natured competition to prove who was the best in the land.

Now many of these fairs have become seasonal carnivals, with an emphasis on rides and midway games.    But our Chester Fair still has barns where a dwindling number of farmers bring their cattle and goats, where teams of enormous horses go against each other at pulling great sleds loaded with concrete blocks, where proud gardeners show off their finest vegetables and flowers, and where judges sample double-crust apple pies, chocolate cakes, jellies, jams, and pickles to give someone bragging rights in our small little corner of the world.   Yet this is serious business.  Years ago I knew a man who assured himself of winning a blue ribbon at the Fair by entering something that nobody else would think of entering, at least here in Connecticut:   he grew okra.  

Make no mistake:   I come to eat fried dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, maybe have a roasted ear of corn or a roll overflowing with sausage and peppers.   But always we find our way to the barns on the edge of the fairgrounds where farm kids are shearing their sheep and town kids are begging their parents to let them pick out a rabbit to take home as a pet.  This year we also headed over to the juvenile display area, where kids enter their favorite hobby collections and artwork.  There we found a prize-winning painting done by our extremely talented 12-year-old granddaughter, who also won a ribbon for her photograph of a marigold and a blue ribbon for her San Marzano plum tomatoes.  Bring on the fried dough!

Fair

The massive horses stand in shade,
snorting and tossing their heads
as they wait to be led up the dusty ring,
to heave together against a weary weight
as straw-hatted men sit in the bleachers
and shake their heads with respect.
A child steps to pat the nose
of one slick-maned, beauteous beast,
and the great thing pulls away,
as if it knows that this is not a day
for gentle gestures.
Today prizes will be lavished
on strutting roosters and pampered sheep,
on perfect tomatoes and prodigious dahlias,
on pies that look too good to eat,
and on some stomping, sweating team
of Percherons or Belgians.
But I would like just one old barn someplace
where the smell of roasting corn can drift and fill the air,
where a child could win a big blue ribbon
for kindness, or for joy,
where a funny-looking goat could earn a prize
just for being loved the most.

--Timothy Haut, August 27, 2014