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2007 08 24

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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v04n17)

Tammy's Take - By Tammy Leiber

posted: Aug. 24, 2007

A couple of weeks ago, I spent the weekend chilling out at the family farm in southern Indiana.

The weekend was full of family, food and laughter. The shade trees and cool breezes kept the farmhouse comfortable even while heat waves were rising from the parched fields. The tree frogs sang me to sleep at night and I spent most of one day trying to catch a salamander I dubbed Sparky that had found its way into the kitchen.

I refer to the old farmhouse as "my summer home" because the ancient oil furnace conked out a few years ago. The nip in the night air reminded me that I only have a couple more visits before I have to turn off the water and close it up for the winter.

When I left late Sunday afternoon, I found a katydid in my Jeep, trying to hitch a ride to Indianapolis. I shooed it away.

"Katy, you don't want to go where I'm heading," I told it.

Neither did I.

By Monday afternoon, back in the city, I was homesick. By Tuesday morning, I was angry at the world and everyone in it.

My only hope was intensive Fair-apy.

So Tuesday, I took a mid-afternoon break at the Indiana State Fair. I parked near the horse barns and headed for the nearest funnel cake stand. The corners of my mouth turned involuntarily upward when I saw the pony and elephant rides. I took a deep breath, and smelled hay and animals and the slightest whiff of kettle corn.

Funnel cake in hand and mouth, I wandered through the Pioneer Village. I laughed out loud at the pictures showing volunteers how to dress appropriately: The same man was gamely modeling both the women's and the men's versions. I pointed out the pictures to a stranger standing next to me. He was probably the first person I hadn't snarled at all day.

On the Pioneer Village stage, a four-piece band called Three Bean Salad played traditional songs. I drifted outside and listened to the steam engines. A sign pointed the way toward the "Possum Holler In-Dustrial Park," with its brightly painted antique tractors and planters and threshers. Along the walkway, broccoli and cucumbers and (of course) corn grew in neatly planted rows.

It occurred to me that no one arranges festivals around other Indiana industries, featuring antique metal presses or foundry furnaces.

My mood much improved, I headed back to the office. On my way out, a deputy directed traffic using the roasted turkey leg he was occasionally taking bites of.

That evening, I declared it a "two Fair-apy session kind of day," and met Nora and Hostel John on the Monon Trail. As I pedaled my bike to meet them, I thought how it was like meeting up with friends as a kid to go to the town festival.

We walked through the midway, then checked out Nora's prize-winning salt and pepper shaker in the Home & Family Arts Building. After a stop at the Dairy Bar, we watched judging for the draft horses. Outfitted with gleaming leather and chrome, the massive Clydesdales and Percherons pulled lacquered carts driven by men in topcoats and hats.

By that time, I couldn't even remember why I'd been in a foul mood earlier. As the sun set, we sat for a spell and ate again, talking and laughing and watching people.

In some ways, the Indiana State Fair celebrates a way of life that doesn't exist anymore. I doubt anyone really misses working fields with horse-drawn plows or tractors that start (if you're lucky) with a hand crank. I'm pretty sure Hoosiers can universally agree that it's nice to be able to buy clothes and blankets in a store, rather than having to sew them all.

But in other ways, that way of life does still exist. It's in the lives of people who meticulously maintain antique farm machinery and who keep a team of work horses for show. As long as people sit quilting in the Pioneer Village and teach old songs to new people, it will continue to exist.

And I'm thankful that for a week and a half in August, those people share that life with us city dwellers.

Tammy Lieber is a freelance writer who lives in Meridian Kessler, otherwise known as SoBro. A former reporter at the Indianapolis Business Journal, she now writes journalism and marketing pieces when she's not fixing up her house or enjoying the company of friends over a pint of Guinness. Her favorite spectator sport is politics, except on Sundays during football season. Email her at tammy@broadripplegazette.com

tammy@broadripplegazette.com

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