Desperately Seeking Salem

This land is your land and this land is my land, but my Oregon State Fair is definitely not your Oregon State Fair.

My state fair — still the best state fair in the state! — is a world of rides I can’t go on, foods I can’t eat, bathrooms I have to make a beeline for (in every building), crowds I have to maneuver through without getting my belly bumped a bit, and crushing sunlight that makes carrying around Baby D kind of uncomfortable.

But my Oregon State Fair is also a place where I can experience the sheer production of the land I have chosen as my home — the unending products and fruits that grow and thrive and are plucked in their prime in Oregon.

Check out this quilt made by a member of Oregon Women in Agriculture. I am a person who generally refuses to be pleased by quilts unless they capture something specific and are laid out in patterns and designs that look, well, nothing like most quilts look. My standards for quilts are extreme. I expect quilts to be so gorgeous you could hang them on the wall next to mid-century furniture and not seem out of place. Which is to say, I love quilts, as long as they aren’t too country.

But man, this products of Oregon quilt — it almost makes me weep. It’s like a picture postcard of all the things I love about this place.

And yes, the sheep are as fuzzy as they look.

In the same hall where I viewed the quilts, I came across the stand of Oregon Writers, including one William Sullivan, whom I recognized instantly, though his author pic seems to be a bit out-of-date (aren’t they all). When I moved to Salem, my friend Jan gifted me with a stack of used Oregon travel guides, including some by Mr. Sullivan, who in his youth, walked across Oregon from the northeast to the southwest tip, without much planning. You could say he was the successful precursor to Christopher McCandless.

Mr. Sullivan smells like he just walked across Oregon, from the northeast to the southwest tip. I’m guessing the cougars caught a scent of his naive and endearing aura and passed on by.  By now, he is a one-man media empire who seems to have conquered the market on local history tomes. He tried to sell me a novel that sounded really bad.

Can you see the sign for Oregon Writers? It’s kind of misleading. Most of the writers on display here — hawking their stories so aggressively that you couldn’t even pick up a book without an instant synopsis and elevator pitch from the author — are writing about Oregon pioneer life. Oregon writers writing about Oregon. But not like Chuck Palahiuk writers about Oregon… like SCA groups would write about Oregon.

One rather sweet woman, Jessie E. Turner, interested me more with her tatting enterprises (lace-making), than her books. I do see the connection between the activities of tatting and writing.

The cake decorating contests had more to offer me.

Capturing the essence of Oregon through cake! Shout it out! Mt. Hood on a masterpiece! Blue fondant icing! Holly during the summer! Rocks you can eat!

We didn’t spend too much time in Columbia Hall, or as I like to call it, the “Everyone’s Got a Schtick” room. I’m not really sure what the bar is for vendors to enter this storied chamber, but I was kind of shocked to come across more than half a dozen nail care salespeople, cell phone battery charger stands, Tupperware salespeople, back massage gadget pros, and this glorious man, selling chamois, who fulfilled for me the “give me a freak at the fair” wish I had been hoping for since setting foot at this joint.

“Step right up folks! Have we got something special for you today! We’ve entered that best time of the day folks, the time when you can get an extra special price that no one else has been offered yet! Let’s see what we can do here for you today. How many of you have a twenty dollar bill in your pocket? You, sir, do you have a twenty dollar bill in your pocket? Everyone does. Lay it on the table. What would you say if I told you you could get not one… not two… not three… not four… but five specially engineered chamois cloths for just $20. That’s a $100 value — five for the price of one! This stuff sells itself folks, I don’t have to do anything! Wait, oh, you don’t get it. You don’t really understand how great these chamois cloths are because you’ve never used one. Well, I can’t help people who don’t know anything. People who use them know what a great deal this is. That’s fine, these sell themselves, if you won’t buy it someone else will…”

I found my peace at the chicken coops. Like LoveSalem said recently, it’s a rather disappointing exhibition, but the hens and cocks themselves were gorgeous.

This is a guinea hen and she’s better dressed than most people I saw at the fair.

Finally, we got to the real goods — the livestock. I have a deep admiration for farm kids, and children who grow up participating in 4-H. This little girl almost sold me a two-week-old Nigerian goat. But they’re not allowed within city limits (ungulates),  so I’ll settle for the pleasure of having heard her story and her sales pitch,  the best I encountered at the fair.

Remind me to be an eight-year-old girl with a goat the next time I pitch one of my stories.

Next year, I’ll be the one eating the fried Snickers bar. On top of the funnel cake. Wrapped in cotton candy. Drizzled with “carmel,” and garnished with a Bloomin’ Onion.