Montgomery County Sentinel

Welsh Rare Bit
We Went To The Fair

All of the family, excepting Mercedes and Chauncey, went to the Gaithersburg Fair Thursday night. I made such good friends with some of the animals that I returned Friday night to talk with them. There was one very old horse with whom I talked. He re-called the hectic days of his youth when Bubblehead Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture. The very thought of Bubblehead and his cohorts made the horse ill and he had to lie down in his stall.

On Friday night it was my privilege to take our Foreign Exchange Student to the fair. She is a 17-year-old Italian girl from Torino and will be with us a whole year if she can stand the old cars and dogs. She went to the fair on Thursday night but insisted upon returning with me on Friday because she said there was nothing in Italy to compare to the Gaithersburg fair - and that there had not been since they condemned the Roman colosseum.

We drove in from the north of Gaithersburg and turned west on a street that went by the bowling alley. The alley was closed that night so we were allowed to park the car there for fifty cents and also got a ticket for one free game of bowling even though the alleys were closed. We then entered the fairgrounds by the Holstein gate. Our Italian student was amazed by the large size of the cows and the youth of the children who took care of them. She said that in Italy only old people like Grandma Moses take care of cows.

We turned left at the Holstein gate and made our way up to the buildings where the country hams were. We passed the Planned Parenthood booth which featured a touching movie which I did not see because I only have a very thin academic interest in planned parenthood nowadays. Walked by the Temperance booth where there was a gruesome movie showing a lung operation which should convince people that tobacco and lung cancer go hand in hand and that cancer is a condition that one can do without.

On the way to the country ham display I had a talk with Sparky Bear. Sparky is one of the most articulate bears I have ever talked with and the best informed. He knew that there was no smoking in court rooms; and I presented him to Dindina. Dindina -she is our Italian student, and may I introduce her to you now said that it was the first time that she had ever talked with a bear although she had talked to a New York cab driver.We said goodbye to Sparky and went into the produce building.

Dindina spent a lot of time looking at the paintings and I enjoyed a seashell exhibit and resolved to go to the ocean over Labor Day after I get licked at Forest Hills. We went through the tomatoes and the potatoes, the beans and the infinite variety of squash, the corn on cob and the tall corn standing in the corner. the fruit and the pumpkins and I peeled back the wrapping on the hams and smelled each one and must confess looked around and weighed my chances of a successful ham-snatching.

We entered the building where the bees are and watched them awhile and bought some honey. I looked at all of the fruit and vegetables nestled securely in the glass jars but I could not taste or smell them so we left for the animals, the rabbits and the fowl.

Dindina was particularly fond of the rabbits and I must say that I did not know there were so many different breeds. She had never seen red-eyed rabbits before. I became interested in the rabbits and engaged in a game of staring them in the eye. Pick a good intelligent looking rabbit about eye level and look him dead in the eye. As he looks at you his nose will wrinkle. The question is whether you will wrinkle your nose or he stop wrinkling his nose. If you wrinkle your nose it means you are being dominated by a rabbit who is staring you down. My nose is still twitching; and I was glad to get out of the rabbit hutch.

We then went to the chicken house and I did not see an egg and what kind of a chicken house is it that doesn't have any eggs? Dindina did not like the roosters. She is not clear on why but I believe it is their arrogance that repels her. I thought the roosters were magnificent. Nevertheless I cannot get up much feeling towards chickens or ducks - and if I had to make a choice between chickens or pigs for company, I would take a pig anytime.

We went into the swine club and ran the gauntlet between the Berkshires and the Hampshires. There was one nice looking red Duroc there and he was sort of lonely. I think that pigs are smart and clean. Aside from dogs, they are my favorite domestic animal. They are also useful when decorating a couple of eggs, or featuring boiled potatoes and cabbage.

Roast beef and steak are commonplace foods compared to country sausage or cabbage and potatoes boiled in ham liquor. I should be an honorary member of our county swine club and I'll gladly pay my dues to get in.

After leaving the animal exhibits I passed by the booth of my brothers of the Montgomery County Bar Association. where excellent literature was passed out to the public with the best of motives; but, in Heaven's name, brothers, do we have to do such things alongside the farm machinery, the swine, and the sideshow fakirs at our county's biggest fair?

We left the "animal-looking" part of the fairgrounds and then went into the "people-watching" section. As I am always attracted to the things of the sea, I paid a dime to see the sharks and other denizens of the deep. I believe they had been caught in a sub-division swimming pool.

We ate some popcorn - the first Dindina had ever tasted. Let me tell you something. Taking an attractive 17-year Italian girl around Maryland on her first trip to America is a rare privilege. It is exciting to see her react to the things we take for granted, such as: popcorn, large black and white cows, the voice of the auctioneer rising in pitch as he gets 80 cents for beef, the noise of the barkers, red combs on the roosters and the wrinkly noses of the rabbits.

We were afraid of the rides, but we wagered on our skill at some of the wheels and won a doll baby and a china cup. We left just before the rains came.

Dindina said it was a good way to learn about America and I agreed. I tried to tell her that Maryland is a very small state and that our agricultural output is small compared to the giants of the midwest. But I think she did not believe me and so there will be nothing to do but to go out west where Dr. Welsh is and find out first hand.