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Photograph by Thomas Crone
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Photograph by Thomas Crone
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Photograph by Thomas Crone
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Photograph by Thomas Crone
The Madison County Fair is taking place through Sunday at the county fairgrounds in Highland, Illinois; there’s been activity happening there since Tuesday, though a lot of the crowd-pleasing events are planned for this weekend. Getting there’s about a 40 minute drive from the heart of the city, one that takes you through the corn and soy fields of southwestern Illinois and deposits you in a trim-and-tidy township that looks just a bit like the movie set of Back to the Future. (That’s not a writerly conceit; it really does give off that vibe.) Not far from the little downtown, the fairgrounds stretch out and offer a little bit of everything.
Last night, we sampled funnel cakes and looked at dozens of different chicken varieties. We perused the 4H Club’s craft tables and wandered through rows of sleeping show hogs. We noticed the trends in small town fashion (boots! boots! boots!) and, yes, paid $12 apiece to watch the combine demolition derby. Let’s pause for a minute on this one.
It was, in the fact, the deciding reason we went last night: to see massive farm equipment smash in a battle arena, six combines running per heat. The combines, even from a distance, are big, muscular pieces of gear and as they hunted one another, “Oohs” and “Ahhs” were heard from the hundreds in attendance. At times, a combine would stall, or a wheel would break and the machines (with names like Mario, Luigi, The Blue One, and, most curiously, Professional Hooker) would go silent. The three left running after each heat moved onto the next round, and the fatalities were dragged off the modified rack course by equally large tractors. Um, wow.
It’s the kind of thing you don’t need to see every weekend. But once in life? Oh, absolutely. That’s something you gotta see to believe and Madison County’s Fair has a variety of smash-’ems planned for the weekend.
The people-watching was pretty amazing, too, whether in the stands of the arena, or along the midway of the carnival, where rides were spinning and carnies were barking. Small groups of teens wandered the fairgrounds, two-four deep, in search of friends, fun, maybe a li’l bit of trouble. Strollers were pushed; and judging by the unofficial pregnant lady count, Madison County’s population is as fertile as the nearby farmland. American flags hung everywhere, and Cardinals gear took a definite second place to the Chicago White Sox. (And speaking of white, there’s a certain, erm, demographic thing happening at the fair and we’ll just allude to that and let it rest; places are places, and people are people, and people living in certain places sometime really look alike.)
The Madison County Fair is a wholesome experience, a solidly Midwestern slice of Americana. The general sense of time-travel to a 1950s-feelin’ America might get you to go, or it might be the funnel cakes or the chickens that give you the final motivating push. If all of that’s not enough, there’s a lawn mower demolition derby tonight and, for a mere $12 admission, that sounds really kind of amazing.
The Madison County Fair runs through Sunday, July 31. For a full schedule of events, click here.
