County Fair

Smells. Odor. Aroma. The instant you enter the gate of a county fair your olfactory sense is bombarded by machine gun bullets of images that have lain dormant in the memory cells of your brain. Scientists maintain that our sense of smell is the last one we lose as we age and that it triggers more forgotten memories than any of the other four.
Go out to the fair that has endured for over a century and breathe in the enticing aroma of your yesterday when a ticket bought the excitement of the gaudy midway and a night of thrills. Take you grandchildren, banning all tablets & cell phones and let them explore the world of smell. Cover their eyes and encourage them to identify the odor of horse droppings, the sweetness of honey, the burnt sugar of cotton candy, the fumes of gasoline, and the buttery crispness of popcorn all coming at them in a calliope of sensation. Today they may believe the Grands are a bit on the balmy side, but in future years they will be introducing their own grandchildren to the different odors collected witnin the fenced grounds of a fair.
Summer time is fair time. To be a perfect county fair it must be hot enough to bake potatoes on the roof of the grandstand or rainy enough that rivulets of sweat dripping from you nose match the drops splashing in the puddles on the road. There is never anything fair-to-meddling about county fair weather. Mother Nature provides her own perfume to match the whim of her outstanding productions.
Fairs are first and far most about individual competition and the judge's decisions are final, at least until next year. The idea of individual competition has almost disappeared from our consciousness and been replaced by teams or groups, both in industry and education. Though for the life me I've never discovered a group brain. The county fair revises the importance of individual achievement.
Who bakes the best pie? Who preserves the crispest pickles? Who trains and rides the most skilled horse? Who raises the most outstanding pig? Who drives the strongest team of horses? Who creates the most intricate quilt design? These questions and many more are answered each year at the county fair. Who is crowned Grand Champion and takes home the purple ribbon of royalty? It is a glorious week of achievements and recognition for the individual and speaks to the very foundation of American principles.

It is also dirty, muddy, grubby, and loads of fun to dance along on the winds of smells , no matter what your age.

Nash Black thanks the contributors to Google Images for the photos on this blog, they are not their own.

Faded Photographs

While browsing in a flea market, antique store, or cleaning out the attic of a family home have you opened a photo album with black paper or an old shoe box and found a stack of old black and white photographs? Maybe you stopped and wondered who these people where that graced the glossy surfaces.
You know they are from an era way before your time, the quality of the image may be poor being either over or underexposed. They may be blurred because of a slow shutter speed and a shaking hand, fingers may extend down over the lens, heads may be cut off as the view finder and the lens did not see the same part of the image.
Selfies are not new, one of the first was taken by Charles Eastman using his new development, the hand held box camera. His box camera opened the world of photography to the public for personal (amateur) photos. Its size may have become smaller over the years, but the same basic design lasted well into the 1960s. Today you will see examples gracing the shelves of antique stores.
A roll of film would allow 12 images, double images were a hazard when you forgot to wind the film, and flash bulbs provided light for indoor shots. You used your roll of film and then, either took it to the drug store or mailed it in a yellow envelope to be developed and the pictures printed. This generally took about a week or a little more before you could enjoy the product of the little box of immorality.
A careful exploration of the faded photographs revels four basic subject: stills, children, animals, and people. None of the are labeled so the futre viewer does not know where they where taken or who posed for the camera.

Still lifes are bowls of fruit, plants, holiday decorations, vehicles, homes, barns, etc. They are flat and lifeless with one shape blending into another without definition. Shadows, if they exist at all, are muddy and indistinct.

Children's faces are ugly squints as they face the sun. The instructions that came with the camera told the photographer to let the rays of the sun fall over his left shoulder to properly illuminate the subject. Children being who they are adore making funny faces for the camera.

Animals that were prized for their qualities or family pets are beloved subjects for the roving lens and were often used to finish a roll. Dogs and cats have enlarged heads and small bodies as the photographer was bending over bending over to snap the picture while the pets stretched to investigate this strange thing that was being that was being poked their way. Blurs were common where paws and tails moved while the shutter was open.

People are stilted and posed in groups, dressed in their Sunday best standing on steps, sitting on porches, or perched on the family car, but wearing phony smiles or grimaces of endurance while waiting for the photographer to study the image through the view finder.
The romanticize portrait of an individual, usually a girl posed against a tree was a common favorite. The setting was used by amateur and professional alike. The worst one of this genre I ever saw was the engagement photo of a former student. The trunk of the tree was covered with poison ivy, It required hospitalization and two weeks for her to recover from the photo session.

On rare occasions you will discover a jewel where luck played a greater factor than skill. Treaure these old photographs as they are a glimpse into everyone's past.

Fox in the Hay

A tiny sprinkle of rain and an overcast sky did not put a damper on our anticipation of a Memorial Day holiday ride across my parents old farm on the 4-wheeler. Unbeknownst to me at the time it was to be one of the last carefree mornings I spent with my husband of many years, Dennis Hardin.
We lolled and lulled along, enjoying the rolling landscape, the little pond surrounded by cattails, the crocking of frogs, the bales of new mowed hay marching across the fields, the smell of wild honeysuckle (yellow and gold) that hugged the fencerows. We were coming back up the east side of the field when Dennis spied a little fox caught in a bale of hay. The hay was bound with twine, and the fox was at the bottom of the bale, half hidden by the hay. His right hind leg was caught in the binding twine and about to encircle his throat from his struggles to free himself.
He was a beautiful little fox--a baby--with captivating brown eyes, a soft mouth, and perfectly symmetrical ears--a face that bespoke of youth and innocence. He was barely weaned, yet there was an impatience about him that comes from living in the wild.
How to loosen him was the problem. Since he partially covered by the hay and attempted to bite the stick Dennis put up gently to him, we knew he still had plenty of life. He was either badly bruised or had cut himself since a few green flies had gathered around for the kill.
There was no was to loosen the twine, now triply knotted and tightly bound round the bale. We had nothing with us to cut the cords that bound him in his prison. We raced back to the barn to get a pair of sheers to free him and were back in about ten minutes.
Our brief absence seemed to have resigned him to his fate. Dennis held him with little resistance on the fox's part, while after several tries, I cut through the twine. He was free. Swiftly as a bird he was into his underground hole a mere three feet away from where we stood.
Since then I've wondered, was his fate that afternoon accidental or pre-ordained? Like Burn's mouse, did the "best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray?" And the best laid plans of foxes, too -- did they, like humans, somehow manage to get to their destinations, though often through a labyrinth of unforeseen tangles?

Dr. Elizabeth Harden, retired professor from Wright State University in Dayton, OH is our guest writer for this post. She is no stranger to Ono County.
The delightful "Fox in the Hay" sketch is by Barbara Appleby.
Nash Black thanks both ladies for their efforts contributions to this blog.

Some Granny Cures

There was a time when grandmothers knew everything or were believed to by their young worshipers who treasured their presence when illness struck. Today medical science tends to pay Granny more respect for her home remedies than it did during previous generations when the marvels of science was all the rage.
     Splinters were common as toys and many other items were constructed of wood, not plastic. Most were easily extracted with a needle from Granny's sewing basket. If this method proved difficult and more powerful measures were required she reached for an egg. She cracked it, set the yolk and white aside for other uses and carefully pealed the white membrane away from the shell. She gently applied this over the break in the skin above the splinter. The theory being that the egg skin as it dried would draw the splinter to the surface to be removed with tweezers. Today, a dad of white glue can produce the same results when left to dry. It can then be pulled away bringing the splinter with it.
     Chiggers and mosquito bites were doctored with an old friend, Absorbine Jr. This one I know from experience and keep a bottle within easy reach in the bathroom spring, summer, and fall. How many can remember using clear finger nail polish to seal the little hole left by a chigger? Generally one application will stop the itching and burning so the bite can heal on its own.
     Forgetfulness was relieved by cutting a lemon in half and then rubbing the tips of both halves. Next time you cannot find your keys or your glasses try the lemon cure.
     Onions were just not for hamburgers. Every home had a supply of onions; the hot type that would instantly bring tears to your eyes when their skins were pierced. I remember them being referred to as 'keeper' or Spanish onions, they were hard and yellow that when cooked had a pungent taste. For colds and flu they were Granny's friends.
If you were coming down with a cold you would be fed fried onions for supper or given a slice of raw yellow onion to eat just before bedtime. By morning cold symptoms would be gone. For a cough due to a cold cooked onions would be mixed with honey for a soothing syrup.
Another tried and true cold treatment is to gargle with warm salt water before going to bed to relieve a sore throat.
My grandmother was a nurse during the terrible winter of 1918 when a virulent strain of flu raced across the United States killing many people. Her family never caught the flu as she kept half a fresh yellow onion in a dish by each bed. She discovered the ancient remedy in farm homes whose residents were ill, but did not die. When the flu virus was present in the room of the patient the onion would turn black overnight. Why this worked no one knew, but it did.
     Minor burns were treated by immersing the burned area in cold water and allowing it to dry, then the burn was covered with the scrapings from the outside of a potato and lightly bandaged.
     A Band-Aid was Granny's cure for scraps and cuts and my nephew firmly believed it. He bit his tongue and was screaming his head off when he was confronted with a mumble fingered aunt who didn't know anything. Have you ever tried to fit a Band-Aid to a three year-old's tongue? Once I applied the marvel cure he quieted down and was cured.