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Susie Bright's avatar

Tour de force. “ It’s very difficult to win a blue ribbon if your beast decides to lift its tail and drop a deuce.” Jack, we need the memoir. We need the verbatim “History of Nails” lecture. And I double fucking dare you to come to the Santa Cruz County Fair. Jon and I are prize winners, and yes I’m talking second place winners too. That’s what they do to the intelligentsia.

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Jack Boulware's avatar

Haha thanks Susie! The last time I attended a county fair, my skinny little nephew was exhibiting his monstrous cow named "Large Marge."

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Susie Bright's avatar

“Large and In Charge!”

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Dan Epstein's avatar

Allow me to be the first to say that I think you... nailed it.

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Sandra Austin Mello's avatar

What a fun read! I can relate having gone to high school in rural Tennessee. I’m sending this to scads of folks.

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Reading Off Into The Sunset's avatar

Pretty much describes my childhood, only we weren’t encouraged to be involved in 4H. I would have failed at animal husbandry. But I could make better cookies than anyone!

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Cynthia Phillips's avatar

Good stuff. When I was in school in the rural Texas Hill Country, not too far outside Austin in the 70's, 4-H was ubiquitous, but waning. What I remember is that it was mostly the kids' parents who raised the animals. My parents were non-conformists and they never bothered even going through those motions. But, my friends had to go and show the animals.

I had no idea 4-H was about kids. It was obviously the adults competing with each other. The adults agri-businesses needed these shows to publicize their products.

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