Fairs, storms and leaving a mark

It’s county and state fair time out here. Complete strangers are rolling into small towns all across the Midwest, arriving in campers and big rigs hauling carnival equipment that will be set up on the same meadows as last year and the 100 years before that. It’s all of a piece, the same story every year, the same lines written for new actors, young people who help us to understand an agrarian world unknown to many of us, a world of cattle, hogs, goats, chickens, horses, dogs, rabbits, and all manner of things we don’t think about until the erection of tents and Ferris wheels, and the sweeping of barns; a world hearkening back to Thomas Jefferson who believed the country should be governed by those who work the hardest, the farmers. Yeah, well, look how that turned out.

Last week I set up a chair on the drive in front of my garage, because to the north and west Voldemort-frightening storm clouds were billowing their way toward me, and I wanted to be a part of it, wanted to feel it under my skin, deep down. Violent, rolling thunder swirled overhead, like something out of Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”; ghosts playing ninepin, rolling strike after strike. Then the rains came and I pulled my chair into the garage where Dvorak’s “9th Symphony” came from speakers I had installed last spring. The “9th” is more commonly known as the New World Symphony and, watching the rainfall on my dark forest, it felt just right. The composer spent the summer of 1893 in the tiny Iowa town of Spillville, a sweet place north of here, and one has to believe that much of the inspiration for his work came from hiking the woods and hills surrounding the town, resting by the Turkey River. I find the same inspiration here, though I certainly lack his ability to convey it so gloriously.

During the storm, I wondered what kind of protection the wild things sought, and then a soaking-wet ground squirrel approached me, scampering across the drive, which sort of answered my question. If I’d had an umbrella small enough I would have handed it to her. I once worked on the second floor of an office building and my window overlooked an employee parking lot, and it never ceased to amaze me that men were loathe to carry umbrellas during a rain, while women wisely kept dry under theirs. I suppose it’s not manly to carry an umbrella. I don’t really know. Our notions of masculinity have always seemed a bit silly and arbitrary.

Sometimes when alone on my tractor in the heat of a summer sun I reflect on what this place means to me. The diesel engine in front of me throbs, occasionally belching a bit of black smoke when I push the throttle and, on some days, graceful swallows join me in the hollow, diving and swooping to devour flying insects that I disturb on the ground. And the fact is that I don’t really know or understand my love for sixty acres of limestone bluffs and dark woods. Would others feel the same? Will my scent still be in the air long after I am gone? Do we truly leave any long-lasting mark here or anywhere? My hope is that someone years from now will be picking wild black raspberries here and, for just a moment, feel like she’s not alone. A slight unexplained movement perhaps, or what feels like a cool breath on her neck, and she’ll smile, knowing that an old guy who chased the moon long before her birth is standing next to her.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. His book “The Iowa State Fair” is available from the University of Iowa Press.