State Fair

A writer visits three state fairs — Delaware, Ohio and Maine. As he says, “I was raised in a farm state, Indiana, but it was in an industrial suburb of Chicago. The only farm I knew was Pepperidge.”

“Despite urbanization, suburban sprawl, the collapse of family farms and the rise of corporate agriculture, every year, regular as the seasons, the midways light up, the Tilt-a-Whirls clang to life and the judges study the ample rumps of the local livestock.”

And there’s the chocolate covered bacon.

The New Mexico State Fair is September 10-26 (but closed on Mondays and Tuesdays this year, a sure sign of hard times).