Strange Obsessions

I did not grow up in an urban environment, so have no idea what kids do for fun in the summer therein, but in rural America, way beyond the last exurb, we go to the fair.  And not just go, we enter stuff in it. Everything from three year old scribblings to bulls massing over a ton have a Class and a Lot wherein to be entered and judged.  It started innocently enough, grandma would have us bake cookies and pick flowers and make little craft projects.  Then came 4-H and FFA and the plethora of exhibit options available to their members.  After high school came Open Class, wherein anyone could enter anything, assuming they could find a Class and Lot for it.  As I've grown old, I've continued to enter photographs, which depending on the fair, have done quite well, or not.  There is still nothing quite like entering all your junk and then rushing back opening day to see if you got a ribbon; silly, quaint, juvenile, archaic, probably, but still exciting, and a tradition I hope to share with my kids as my grandmother did with me.