Just for Show

Dear Reader,

It is fair season in Florida, and this coming week will be our county fair. One unique thing about our county fair is that it is exclusively for youth from third grade to twelfth grade. If you haven’t guessed, agriculture is very big in our county, and this fair is a very big affair for everyone involved. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into these projects all year and now it is time to show off.

As exhibitors walk confidently into the saw dust arena there is a lot of “show” going on. Dressed in corduroy jackets and impeccably ironed jeans, these exhibitors do not look like they have been in a dusty barn all day. No dear reader, the county fair is the perfect illusion of a show. Exhibitors have been hanging out all day with their animals, getting them groomed to perfection, and surviving off of caffeine and concessions stand french-fries because that is the only thing that feels good on a show anxiety stomach. About an hour before the show starts is when the exhibitors start to put on their show clothes that their moms have been guarding religiously all day. It is not unusual for there to be a line of girls in the bathrooms doing their make up with a few flat irons plugged in along the counter. There is also usually a chair with a line of girls waiting behind it for the one girl in the barn that they discovered could braid hair. After getting themselves ready in a fraction of the time it took to get their animals ready, there is the last-minute preparations to the animals, and then they get to anxiously wait for their class to be called.

At this point in the show process there have probably been a few emotional break downs. There is the preseason break down where you are not sure if you can do this for another season, and maybe you should do something less nerve-racking like soccer. Then there is the midseason breakdown where you are not sure if you will be ready for the show because your animal is not cooperating for any number of reasons, and you begin to doubt your skills in animal husbandry. Then there is the day before the fair break down when stress is at an all time high while you are trying to get everything loaded in the trailer, and everything seems to be going wrong, and you can’t find that one thing and you just don’t know if its all worth it now. Then there is the break down at the trailer a few hours before your class, and one of your parents has to give you the “go out there and kill it” talk. There are other break downs that can happen for various reasons, usually due to a combination of lack of sleep, stress, being hungry, and running on caffeine fumes.

So, when an exhibitor steps into the arena with their animal looking the exact image of agricultural perfection and confidence, know, dear reader, that there was not a lot of confidence going in. Not in the exhibitor’s mind at least. But there is something that snaps when you walk into the arena; you feel like you are a knight with your loyal steed. Sometimes it feels like you are walking into the Roman Colosseum ready to face another gladiator, so you push all insecurities aside and walk out there like you are already the victor. Other times it feels like you are a victorious knight in a parade; you suddenly feel capable of putting on a stoic and noble demeanor. Most of the time I have to adopt the gladiator mentality, because to psyche my self up to go into that arena I have to pretend that I am about to fight for my life.

But after you get out of the showring, that victorious fairytale can sometimes go away. If you place well, the high lasts a little longer. If you don’t place so good, the façade can fall apart as soon as you leave the showring. Sometimes there is crying (again), sometimes there is bickering among siblings while loading the trailer, and suddenly you realize that you are starving and must make up your caloric deficiency immediately.

Looking back at my memories of showing, the thing that I look on most fondly are the times when everyone came in the house from unloading animals and getting them settled for the night. We would all be tired and starving and would start eating anything we could get our hands. A lot of the time we would get takeout on the way home, but we would usually end up eating the rest of the show snacks as well. And then the whole family would talk about our day. What our favorite parts were, what was the most frustrating, and what new friends we made.

Showing animals is a high-stress, high-emotion sport. Where winning is the goal, and that belt buckle means everything to a kid’s heart. But as many hours of hard work as we put into our animal projects and as much as our goal was to win, we were often praised more for our behavior and interactions with others at the show by our parents. Not that they did not appreciate our effort and wins at a show, but like my dad would say, our real job there was to win people for Christ and not ribbons for our boxes.

Sincerely Yours,

The Rancher’s Daughter