The Crawford County Fair

There is a reason why it’s taken me one-quarter of a year to figure out just what I want to say about the Crawford County Fair.  Like every good Crawford Countian, I spent the three months before the fair getting ready and the three months afterwards reflecting on the experience.  I’ve finally found myself in a window of time that has given me enough dreamy days and restless nights of recollection of those few short hours I spent on the grounds of Pennsylvania’s largest agricultural wonder to do it justice.

I am being completely honest when I say that the people of Crawford County, Pennsylvania dedicate a disproportionate amount of their time to preparing for and enjoying the annual fair.  Countless hours are spent concocting recipes in a heated competition for the bragging rights associated with the title of ”4-star Homemaker.”  Children and adults alike take it upon themselves to raise “Grand Champion” livestock that will fetch top dollar in the annual auction.  Demolition derby vehicles are assembled, painted and practiced in for the months preceding the event, and country music fans line up outside the courthouse on the day that ticket sales open up to the public for acts like Toby Keith, Rascal Flatts and Gretchen Wilson.  In 1995 when I was seven years old I competed for the title of Little Miss Waterfowl in my hometown of Linesville, PA against girls who pronounced it their goal in life to claim the crown of Miss Crawford County between the ages of 18 and 23.  This is serious business.

The people who aren’t there for the pigs and the cows or the prize-winning produce come for two things: food and friends, arguably the two most influential aspects of Crawford County culture.  I was raised under the impression that I exist to eat and to socialize, and the fair is an opportunity to engage in both to any heart’s content. 

 It’s hard to pop in to the neighbors’ when ten acres of corn and wheat separate their backdoor from your own, so the cluster of vendors, exhibits and entertainment is an incredibly appealing prospect that only presents itself once a year. It’s easy to lose touch with a community that’s so widespread and self-involved.

 

  The fair is a chance to reconnect with the world, and even if that world is one of wolf t-shirts, fried Oreos and shoddy Ferris wheels, it is one that Crawford County can call its own.  It is unique in that it is exciting in its familiarity: everything is in the same place every August, but when there’s a year between your meals from Curley Fry, those greasy potato spirals just taste that much better.

  Throughout the winter, spring, and summer, it isn’t unusual to encounter a tie-dyed cowboy hat or the newest John Deere tractor in or around the county, but the amalgamation of these and other token symbols for life in rural western Pennsylvania creates a comfortably thrilling atmosphere for the people who live there and a sensory overload for those who don’t.  There’s no better way to get a taste of this unique and admittedly fascinating community than to tromp through mounds of cow dung down the midway of the Crawford County Fair.

Happy Birthday, Conneaut Lake!

More Sesquicentennial celebration

Blue skies in Beckley

More Beckley, WV

Chimney Rock

Although the Appalachian version of Chimney Rock, the landmark made famous to my generation by the Oregon Trail computer game, does not signal any great transition from the prairie to the mountains and isn’t nearly as large as its Rocky Mountain counterpart, something about it still left a midi version of “Uncle Sam’s Farm” stuck in my head.

Ten years too late

My first stop on the road less traveled between Atlanta, Georgia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was Hendersonville, a small historic town just southeast of Asheville in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountain region. Main Street in Hendersonville is lined with enough privately owned shops, restaurants and galleries to keep visitors and residents alike busy all day long — which quite possibly contributes to its being named one of America’s top places to retire in a number of surveys conducted over the past decade or so.

With a thriving arts community that includes both local artwork and traveling exhibits (hence the goats), endless opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts, and a world-famous Apple Festival each fall, I wasn’t surprised that everyone I met in Hendersonville was ridiculously happy and friendly. What did catch me off guard, though, was the lack of retail and restaurant chains within the city limits. Almost everything is owned and operated by the town’s residents themselves, many of whom grew up in western North Carolina. National recognition has definitely increased traffic to Henderson County and the people there have welcomed the great migration of retiring baby boomers with open arms, but they’ve put in a lot of effort to preserve the atmosphere that earned them their reputation in the first place.

Not every town in the greater Asheville area has been fortunate enough to withstand the influx of emigrants who have been promised rainbows, butterflies and bliss.  I visited Brown’s Pottery in nearby Arden, NC, where I met the Brown family’s 8th and 9th generations of potters. When the Browns started throwing pots Benjamin Franklin was still flying kites in thunderstorms, but they didn’t move to their current location until 1924. Still, eighty years is a long time to stay in one place, and upon learning the purpose of my visit to the region Charlie Jr. recommended I talk to Charlie Sr. if I wanted to know anything about anyone who ever lived in Arden.

I explained that I didn’t really want to know about anyone in particular — just about the community and its culture as a whole. Charlie didn’t have to think twice about this. “You’re too late,” he told me as he chuckled and shook his head.
I was a little confused. Did everyone typically vacation during the second week of August? Had I just barely escaped a mass alien abduction that no one had yet bothered to report to the media? Unfortunately not.
Growth and development in Asheville, a lot of which has occurred during the past decade, naturally impacted the city’s suburbs and outlying communities. Some of them have survived, like Hendersonville. Some, like Arden, have not. Brown’s Pottery is one of two original businesses that still remain in Arden; the rest have been bought out or overshadowed by retail and restaurant chains that make up strip mall after strip mall along North Carolina’s “scenic” highway system. The extensive heritage that’s tied this family to their trade for centuries is what has kept them going after everyone around them seems to have given up, but there’s no telling how long they’ll be able to live comfortably while doing so. It’s disheartening to realize that a really rich and wonderful culture is hanging by a thread, and that a few key individuals have to work so hard to preserve it; still, though, the Browns — along with their neighbors in Hendersonville — are committed to a cause that’s made Rand McNally shout their praises from the pages of his large-print atlases, and if the travel gods are on your side, I’d say the outlook’s good that everything will end up okay.

More pottery (and produce!)
More Hendersonville

Goat City, USA

More Hendersonville

In Carl Sandburg’s footsteps

While I don’t have any heroes, I do admire a few individuals whose ideas seem worthwhile. First on this short list is probably Carl Sandburg, the renowned twentieth-century poet/lecturer/songwriter extraordinaire who spent the last third of his life on a huge tract of land in Flat Rock, North Carolina, a tiny town nestled away in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Sandburg is the mastermind behind two ingenious anecdotes by which I try to live my life:

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

and, for when one is just not in the mood for isolation:

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.

The National Park Service wasn’t lying: you’ll never find a truer American than Carl Sandburg.

More Blue Ridge Mountains

Ich liebe Helen

The North Georgia roads which wind up hills and down valleys, over the Chattahoochee and under thick layers of deciduous branches see very little traffic within and between the towns they connect. Fresh produce markets, family-owned diners and artistans’ workshops line both paved streets and dirt roads, and while it’s certainly picturesque, even roadside stands can start to get repetitive after a couple of hours. The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Tourism division has come up with an ingenious way to keep visitors from getting too bored on this scenic drive, though: they’ve cunningly planted Helen — “Mountain Beauty with a Touch of Bavaria!” — smack dab in the middle of the state’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

In addition to keeping drivers awake and alert by confusing the crap out of them, Helen provides a practical alternative to real European travel. Its population — 430 at the last census — has created an environment that is uniquely foreign to the region with a twist that makes it a wordly experience suitable for even the most xenophobic Americans. German music echoes from speakers situated strategically throughout the town and it’s certainly the place to go if you’re craving schnitzel and Krombacher, but interspersed among these international delicacies there are hot dog stands and souvenir shops that specialize in t-shirts that say such witty things as “Remember my name – you’ll be screaming it later!” which serve as constant reminders that tourists have not actually left the red, white and blue.

While Helen’s dual personality is quite an achievement, the most impressive thing about Georgia’s Alpine village is, I think, that it has successfully promoted itself an attractive destination while making a mockery of corporate America. There are national hotels and fast food restaurants in Helen, but they look nothing like their counterparts that surround airports and the U.S. Highway system; instead, they’ve been designed to blend right in with the rest of Helen’s Alpine architecture and the playlist at Wendy’s includes both top 40 hits and traditional German polkas. This dedication to the preservation of a very unique culture gives Helen its charm, and while I don’t think the sustainability of the rest of small-town America depends on everyone’s adding bratwurst to his restaurant’s menu, I do sincerely believe that, whether they realize it or not, the 430-some odd people who call Helen home have made a statement that could save the world from the bland redundancy of America’s megacorporations.

Alpine Helen

More Helen

The end of an era

The manager of Pymatuning State Park announced earlier this month that the world as the people of Linesville know it will come to an end on January 1, 2009.  On this day, it will officially become illegal to throw anything but specially-developed fish pellets into our beloved Spillway.

According to a Meadville Tribune interview with Pete Houghton, park manager, people have mistaken the Spillway for a larger-than-life garbage disposal.  The cupcakes, Coca-Cola and corrugated cardboard visitors have been tossing to the fish have apparently been deemed unsafe for fish consumption and carp health is the top priority of the people at Pymatuning State Park.

While fish pellet vending machines will inevitably boost revenue at the Spillway, which is free and open to the public year-round, I don’t really get why bread and other food products are being outlawed.  In the countless visits I have made to western Pennsylvania’s most popular natural tourist attraction, I have seen only two dead carp.  I do not think we need to be concerned with endangering a species.  Besides, if Darwin were still around, he’d probably argue that “survival of the fittest” is a determining factor in the circle of life and that, from an practical standpoint, Pymatuning State Park ought to pump stale cupcakes into the lake periodically in order to ensure that the weak fish don’t overtake the strong ones and end up ruining the whole economy of Linesville when someone decides to dump a container of egg salad into the Spillway in five years and kills the population in its entirety.  Who wants wimpy carp? It’s a matter of population control.

My high school science teacher, himself a lifelong resident of Linesville, once asked if I knew how to make a great-tasting carp. Of course, the answer was no; carp are notoriously tough and flavorless, and I’d never try to eat one because it would feel too much like cannibalism given my hometown’s history.  “Well,” he said, “you sand a plank of wood. You cut off the scales and the head and take out all the guts, and then you mix up some paprika and some basil and a little bit of garlic and slather it on there. Then you bake that sucker for 3 or 4 hours in an oven at about 425 degrees, you take it out, throw away the fish and eat the board.”

So since the thousands — millions, maybe — of carp that reside in Pymatuning Lake are not at risk of being overfished and have not been dying by the boatload from eating moldy bread, potential species endangerment has been ruled out as a legitimate excuse for charging me twenty-five cents to throw a handful of nuggets into the gaping mouths of some of Linesville’s more favorable residents.  Pollution can’t be the problem, because they’ll gulp down anything you toss to them before it even hits the water. The only thing I can possibly fathom that would excuse such an irrational decision is a humungous payoff from the state of Ohio to draw more visitors to their (much dirtier) side of the lake.

My only advice to tourists planning to visit the Spillway after January 1, 2009 would be to stay home, fill your bathtub with photos of carp and toss in your leftovers to your heart’s content. I hate to say it, Pymatuning, but you’ve really ruined your sex appeal.