County Fair

Friends,

This year Whidbey Island is celebrating the 100th anniversary of our Island County Fair. Although the northern half of our island includes a large naval base and thus has become more of a commercial center, the southern part of our island is still quite rural with a culture based on farming, lumbering, and animal husbandry. The county fair offers the rural community, the 4H programs, the farming and the gardening culture, and the wider community to come together and share their knowledge and showcase their agricultural products. 

Then, of course, there are the raucous amusement rides, lumberjack demonstrations, animal barns, various commercial vendors, lots of food stalls, and social and political booths. I find the county fair to be a common gathering for all; neighbors greeting neighbors they haven’t seen in a while; teenagers on an awkward first date; families with children in tow; and people who just come tor the entertainment on the old-fashioned program stage featuring musicians, magicians, and all sorts of interactive, audience participation. A sense of belonging becomes especially important as we age and our mobility and energy needs to be carefully allotted, and I was so pleased to see a good number of elders in the agricultural barns judging the produce, delighting in the creativity of the quilts, and happily sharing their years of gardening practice. And I always assume those living in the towns or suburbs especially appreciate the opportunity to be in close touch with the animals. 

What I found most appealing this year, however, is that no one among the crowd was looking at their cell phones. They were attentive to their dates, their family, their responses to all the stimulation of being in a lively and engaged communal gathering. Of course the fair is an exception to normal life, but I found the sense of interaction and togetherness to be especially notable. Whether or not it is still true, I thought nostalgically about my memories of the local county fair of my teen years, riding the Ferris wheel with a new girlfriend, checking out my friends’ 4H exhibits, and the excitement of kind of an annual rural fantasy world in a much simpler time. 

The local rural county fair is actually what I imagine to be a contemporary version of age-old traditions in rural areas across the globe when people gather to sell products, share stories and knowledge, and celebrate the lives they hold in common. Our social bonds of churches, recreational clubs, and various support groups have shifted over the years with much more time alone with our cell phones or private recreation. But individuals still yearn for opportunities of belonging and sharing their lives, and the county fair counts as one of those times when we are truly engaged in our wider community. 

One of my most important societal concepts is the importance of honoring and living out the common good of our communal and shared lives. As I reflect on my experience at the fair I thought of all of us at the fair as a peaceful, mutually supportive community, and I want to believe we are capable of this form of community in our every day lives. I see us all actually remarkably alike, basically good people, willing and able to support each other in crises and in need, May we find and elect leadership that supports that vision, and may the conduct of our personal lives be deeply committed to honoring and supporting the common good.

Peace,
Tom