~a column by Colleen O’Brien
The Greene County Fair was once a carnival with cows. It’s now cows, no carney. Although the glitz is gone, the fair remains, and it’s worth a stroll through Clover Hall and the barns – the whole 4-H scene – because these 4-H’ers are smart, creative, hard-working and nice . . . such a combination in an era of bad-news teens if you are foolish enough to pay attention to the-world-is-going-to-hell media.
The non-livestock projects from the many 4-H groups in Greene County took up all of Clover Hall on judging day. Tables and tables of art, photography, clothing, yard art, purses, dog houses, cat homes, collage, pottery, cinnamon rolls, cakes, pies – it’s difficult to imagine this variety and almost as hard to grasp as you’re perusing it.
Three rusted bicycle wheels descending in size from the ground up, welded together to look like a snowman, is a piece of yard art just made for my backyard; or to be sold for a goodly sum at Brunow’s bike shop. An ingenious and colorful pillow slip with pockets and a handle, called the “Everywhere You Go Pillow,” would never be left in the motel room. The back of a pair of jeans was designed as an apron, a ribbon through the loops to tie around your waist, the pockets full of sewing scissors, a white pencil, a ruler, a box of pins. I was picturing it with garden sheers, gloves, a hand spade and a garden knife.
One gal, 17-year-old Bailey Godwin, entered 19 projects for judging in Clover Hall and will show her sheep and horses in the arenas during the week. Besides that, she plays and practices softball most days, while on the side perfecting her various specimens of art and practicality for blue ribbons here and at the State Fair later in the summer. Four of her entries that I admired: an antique-looking but recently completed 14-inch vase formed on a potter’s wheel (a feat, believe me; I’ve tried it); a refinished Victorian oak dresser with mirror; a padded and covered lid on a hope chest; a photo montage of family members and their horses for her grandmother. . . . This girl, who might go to college to become a veterinarian like her grandfather Karber (Grand Junction vet for more than half a century), might also run for empress of the world. She is talented, smart, strong and determined, as well as pretty, funny, nice to talk to – but not for too long: she has a schedule like a secretary of state.
A table of extraordinary photos captured me twice for about 20 minutes each time. These juvenile photographers are more traveled than 4-H’ers of old, for the photos I loved most were of Florence, Italy; the Eiffel Tower; Big Ben in London; a roofscape of downtown Chicago. Entrancing photos all, but the one that caught my heart was of a winter oak in Greene County, so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The professionalism of these kids practicing this exacting medium awed me.
And on to the barns, always my favorite part of any fair. The bunnies, groomed to velvet sheen, come ordinary and odd: double-chinned, svelte, white, black, appaloosa, tawny, pug-nosed, twitchy-nosed; and, oh, those ears (floppy, alert, big, little, triangular, oval). Their names are priceless – Bugs, Trouble, Grumpy. They look at you with big black liquid eyes, and eat and sleep unafraid.
The fowl – guinea hens, roosters, hens, quail, a Muscovy duck – peck and crow and stand regally in their well-kept feathers; you know they are posing. Beautiful they are, obviously prideful in their pampered existence. Oh, to live the life of a 4-H fair chicken.
