Reporting Live from the County Fair

By: Chris Johnson

This is Chris Johnson, reporting live from the Newaygo County Fair, where the spirit of America is alive and mostly well.

If you’re tired of hearing news about corrupt government, failing families, the loss of traditional American culture, and a growing culture of death, I would encourage you to find yourself a small, rural, county fair like this one to spend some time at.

The atmosphere here is a celebration of the opposite of those things. Here, there are intact, multigenerational families as parents and grandparents pass on their knowledge of livestock and show horses to their kids and grandkids. For us in the North, it can be a shock to see so many cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and Western wear in one place. Country music plays over loudspeakers on “Fair Radio 88.1,” with “Take Me Home, Country Road,” carrying more than its share of airplay.

I kid you not, as I’m writing this, the Radio is playing “What the World Needs is a Few More Rednecks,” by Charlie Daniels:

“What this world needs is a few more rednecks/ Some people ain’t afraid to take a stand/ What this world needs is a little more respect/ For the Lord and the law and the workin’ man/ We could use a little peace and satisfaction/ Some good people up front to take the lead/ A little less talk and a little more action/ And a few more rednecks is what we need.

I was raised on beans and cornbread/ And I like my chicken fried/ Yes, I drive a pickup truck/ And I’m full of American pride/ I keep a Bible on my table/ I got a flag out on my lawn/ And I don’t believe in mindin’/ No one’s business but my own.”

Speaking of driving a pickup, mine is my “office” right now. I’m out here with a walkie talkie while my kids wander the fair on the other end, going back and forth between where their cousin is showing her steer and their grandma is handing out Bibles to kids walking by.

My view in the parking lot is mostly pickup trucks and livestock trailers which carried in the steers, pigs, lambs, and goats, which kids from 8 to 20 will show, and sometimes sell to save for their first car or for college, or maybe just to buy next year’s animal for another shot at winning Grand Champion. In one of the barns on the fairgrounds, my daughter’s own pig, which we raised with her cousins throughout the summer, rests up for tomorrow’s livestock auction, blissfully unaware of how it’s week will end.

In the evenings, there’s a different – let’s call them cultural experiences – every day of the week: several forms of demolition derbies, various pulling competitions – from horses to enormous modified trucks and tractors, children’s Power Wheels races, and farm Olympics.

At Monday’s “Night of Destruction,” the announcer suddenly lost control of his microphone as a furious fair board member seized control to excoriate someone smoking weed in the bleachers.

“Only in Fremont,” was my first thought, but I don’t think it is only in Fremont. I think wherever you find honest, hard-working people who are on a first-name basis with reality, you’ll find folks like this. Charlie Daniels affectionately calls them “rednecks,” but, in a lot of ways, these are the heirs of American tradition. Here you can still see hints of what made America great: the hard work, the unity, the knowledge of our need for the Lord.

One winner of one heat of Monday’s “Night of Destruction” demolition derby was asked who he’d like to thank. “The Big Man Upstairs,” he boldly said, in a confused effort to honor God with a rather disrespectful title. The instinct is there, but the practice is untrained. The tradition as it’s survived is beautiful, but still a shadow of its former self. In the midst of the family friendly atmosphere, you might sit in front of someone who’s cussing up a storm, and sometimes young cowgirls’ outfits make you wonder what their dads are thinking,  …

I realize you don’t know I was gone, but I’m back. Had to step away to see my niece show her steer for the market class. Her first year showing and she won first place! And, as the Lord does, He made sure I was there to hear the judge telling the crowd as they waited to hear which would be named the Grand Champion steer, “this competition is not about winning or losing, it’s about raising quality young people.”–

This place is dusty and dirty and it can be a little rough around the edges, but there is a lot of goodness here.

In our time it is so easy to turn on the radio or the television or some news site or paper to see what’s wrong with the world, but I hope this little bit of an unconventional article from us can be a reminder that there’s still a lot of good in this world too. I encourage you not to just put your energy into tearing down what’s wicked, but into building what’s good.

 

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