Farm Show Notes

The City Slicker Meets the Cows

by John Hope

Maybe I was a farmer in a past life.

I don’t know how else to explain the fact that I, born and bred in far from rich farm soil, keep going back to the Pennsylvania Farm Show long after my kids are grown and I no longer can use them as an excuse.

I mean, it’s somewhat embarrassing that no matter now hard I try, I can’t really look like I belong in the crowds that slowly wend their way through dung-littered corridors to look at one cow, or sheep, or pig after another. You have to realize that I stand 6’2" with graying hair and a full beard. With my long, thin face, I’ve been told I remind people of Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been mistaken for a physician, an attorney, or a rabbi, depending on where I am and how I’m dressed. The reality is that I can wear jeans, a flannel shirt, cowboy boots, and a baseball cap with a John Deere logo, and still look painfully out of place at the Farm Show.

But most years I run the risk of being stared at and head for Cameron and Maclay and my annual fix of animal smells and sounds. This year’s visit was made on Sunday, designated Family Day, with my wife, Anna (who is convinced we should own several horses and some place to keep them other than the backyard of our Second Street home) and Jeannette, one of her closest friends. While I’ve lived in Harrisburg long enough to know how crowded the Farm Show can be — even though I don’t really understand that phenomenon — and always hear the traffic warnings, I thought I could beat the odds (and the traffic) by being devious and coming down the River Relief Route to sneak into the back entrance of the Farm Show parking lot. The massive traffic jam just a little way down the Relief Route from Linglestown Road let me know that I wasn’t the only person with the same brilliant idea.

“Should have taken Industrial Road,” my beloved offered in her own brand of sympathy for my obviously misguided choice. Aware of how a “conversation” like this between my wife and me can go, Jeannette immediately retracted her opinion, and quickly added that whatever route was selected was undoubtedly the best one and everything would work out fine. I had the good sense to remain quiet.

After suggesting that I might drop the women off at the building and let them call when they wanted to be picked up (after all, there was football on TV), I moved into the left lanes intent on going up Cameron Street and heading home in defeat. However, when we drove alongside the Farm Show parking lot, we spotted plenty of open parking spaces. (Note to Self for use in many future circumstances: Sometimes being less devious is more productive than being more devious. And sometime people with the weird notion that whatever path you’ve chosen is the best path are right.)

With this year’s Farm Show blessed with non-Farm Show weather and our decision to attend on the weekend, the place was mobbed with thousands of people who looked like they belonged there and very few out-of-place rabbis and physicians in flannel shirts and John Deere caps.

Fortunately, those guys were far too busy looking at the animals and farm equipment exhibits to wonder if this city slicker posed a threat to them. And, indeed, as is the case every year, there were lots of interesting things to look at and cow piles to step in.

We found our way over to the animals and paced up and down the rows of cows, sheep, and swine, looking both at the animals and at the makeshift housekeeping arrangements set up by the exhibitors. Even though Harrisburg-area motels are completely sold out for Farm Show week, many exhibitors (I suspect it’s mostly teens) camp out in the Farm Show building, complete with cots and sleeping bags, coolers and college dorm-style refrigerators, and the ubiquitous boom boxes. I suspect money could be made if there were some way to charge admission to watch the kids having a good time once the mobs of tourists leave the building each night. Still, you’ve got to be impressed with the kids of all ages who know so much about their animals and work so hard both to make them presentable for the competition and to show them.

The poultry room containing cages of chickens, ducks, geese, and was most remarkable for its noise level. About the only thing I hear in the morning this time of year is the clank of glass being crushed when the recycling truck makes its weekly early-morning run on our block. All the roosters at the Farm Show must have their internal clocks re-set so they think it’s morning 24 hours a day and try to outdo each other in sounding off to greet the dawn.

Another crowd pleaser is the large flying-saucer-like container in which chickens hatch as we watch. I can remember that when we were kids, stores would sell peeps at Easter time and we’d put them in a container with a light bulb to keep them warm. They all died and it’s probably just as well because I have no idea what we’d have done with one or more chickens in our row house in Philadelphia. Nor can I imagine what my mother was thinking in letting us get them. Thank goodness that sort of animal abuse is outlawed now.

We particularly wanted to see the horses because of Anna’s fixation with the notion that we should own our own, but the barn was off limits at the time we were there. However, the hitch competition was underway in the large arena so we climbed the stairs to the top and then risked life and limb going down the steep steps to find seats. (Did I mention that in addition to looking out of place in situations such as this, I also am uncoordinated and can go sprawling without too much effort? Did I mention that my beloved holds the local record for sprained ankles achieved by stepping in holes and tripping over objects?) We managed to enter and leave the arena without harm to ourselves or others (Note to the Farm Show staff: I hope some of the $1.5 million in money for improvements will go for handrails in the nosebleed sections of the large arena) and thoroughly enjoyed the colorful competition, with large, beautiful draft horses trotting around the ring pulling wagons bearing owners dressed in their competition finest.

Having expended a lot of energy getting to and enjoying the hitch competition, it was time for the Food Court and its array of moderately-priced Pennsylvania food specialties. None had nutritional labels on them, which I took to mean they were OK for the diet I tell myself I’m sticking to.

Tradition tends to take hold here so we started with Pork Barbecue sandwiches. I’m told that the only way to eat this sandwich is with pickle relish spread over it, but I’m from Philadelphia, so what do I know! Apparently I committed sacrilege by adding barbecue sauce to my relish-laden sandwich, but I thought it tasted very good and since the vendor had the sauce right there, I figure it can’t have been too illegal.

From there we progressed to the breaded mushrooms and managed to go through two containers of them for the three of us before splitting up — Jeannette for a milk shake and the other two of us for waffles with ice cream and honey. I’m really glad the fat and calorie counts for them must be too low to record because otherwise I’d think they tasted much too good to be OK for someone on a diet.

So what is it about the Farm Show that attracts me each year? I really don’t know. Maybe it’s a deep-seated need that all of us have to return to the earth. Certainly there’s great admiration for those who make a living farming and who know so much more about that industry than I ever will. But most of all, it’s just a heck of a lot of fun to see what’s there, and eat what’s there, and look totally out of my element.

Apparently there a lot of us who want to see what happens at the Farm Show because for the last few years the Pennsylvania Cable Network has telecast “gavel to gavel coverage” of the show on cable stations around the state and there is a significant audience that gets hooked on it.

Granted, it’s better than not experiencing it at all. But it’s not like getting the smell and the sounds and the dust and everything else that goes with touring through the animal living quarters. And it’s certainly not like going to the Food Court and eating all that wonderful Pennsylvania food. The best thing about being there in person this year was that as I left, I found a flyer on my car advertising a weight loss plan. Apparently someone saw me in the Food Court scarfing up the goodies and figured I might want to look a little trimmer before my attempt to pass as a farmer next year at the show.

Postscript: I stayed up late one night watching my computer load software. (And you were afraid I didn’t have a life!) Everyone else was asleep, even the cat that usually sits on my lap and does some typing for me. So I turned on the TV for company, surfed past Leno, Letterman, and Politically Incorrect and then found the Farm Show on PCN. For the next hour, I watched the horse-pulling competition that had been held earlier that day, once again totally mesmerized. The only problem was that as soon as it ended and I shut down the computer, I was desperate for some breaded mushrooms, a baked potato, and a milk shake.