We last attended a county fair five or six years ago. It was held in outside Rhinebeck, New York, the Hudson Valley town best known for New Age medicine and Chelsea Clinton's nuptials. The Rhinebeck fair had just enough animal exhibits to sate my curiosity. That's saying a lot, as I am a complete sucker for displays of cows, chickens, and other barnyard creatures.
I read stories about county fairs when they appear in the MSM. Today's Chicago Tribune, for instance, contained an article about fairs in the suburban counties forming a collar around the Windy City. One notable aspect of the story is how the fairs' appeal has diminished for the mainly new, presumably once-urban residents of the various Chicagoland counties.
One wonders whether county fairs are a vanishing American ritual. I hope not: there's something appealingly subversive about farm animals in a suburban environment.
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