This blog is the personal musings about travel from someone who has already spent 50+ years on this planet and is looking forward to the 2nd and 3rd halves of their life. My opinions are mine. I only link to articles I find interesting.
This year I had the opportunity to visit the New York State
Fair for the first time since I was 10 years old. In my previous
post I wrote about the admiration for the young people who come to fair to
build their skills as farmers and in showing their animals. I had a great time
watching them. But there is so much to do at the fair. I could write pages on
everything that you COULD do, but luckily the NY State Fair has a great web page. There were some activities that I
loved and feel and are really the DON’T MISS things when you visit.
The Pan-African
Village
Located between the Art and Home Center and the Center of
Progress Building, The Pan-African Village is a tribute to roll of African
Americans in the past and present of NY State culture and business. Here you
will find vendors selling African carvings and Shea Butter. There were food
choices that include traditional soul, Jamaican and Puerto Rican dishes. But to
me, the heart of the Pan-African Village is its stage. A wide variety of music
and story-telling is performed on this stage. Jazz, blues, R&B are
included, and, in fact, I really enjoyed this stage more than any other at the
fair. One very good jazz ensemble that performed is the MG3 trio. Fronted by
trombonist and singer Melissa Gardiner, this high energy group played jazz standards and
original compositions.
Melissa Gardiner and the MG3 trio
My favorite performance of the three days that I attended
the fair was The Matie Masie Ensemble, led by Vanessa Johnson, a true griot, performing story-telling, poetry
and songs based in the history of African American struggles for freedom. From
the traditional folktale – The People
Could Fly, to poems from the Harlem Renaissance, Ms. Johnson and her troupe
of musicians and singers give voice to the heartache and triumph of a part of
American history that is so often ignored and so important today.
Vanessa Johnson
Most impressive were some pieces from an opera about the
life Harriet Tubman that the group is developing. Based on the book of poems “They Shall Run” by Quraysh Ali Lansana, and featuring the voices of
Mike Lobdell and Desmonae, opera explores Ms. Tubman as both a historic figure
and as a human being, looking at her family relationships in addition to fight
against slavery.
Mike Lobdell
DesMonae
The Iroquois Village
This part of the fair-grounds was dedicated to the six
nations of the Iroquois Federation in 1928. There were lots of crafts for sale,
and twice a day there are performances of traditional dances representing the
different nations. I was told by several people that the village is also home
to one of the best places to eat at the fair, The Six Nations Soup House, with
traditional Iroquois recipes.
This peace pipe (about 6 feet long) was smoked by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and the leaders of the Iroquois Nation in 1933
Baby Animals
Chicks in the 4H building
One of the fun things to do at the fair is to see the baby
animals. One place to do that is at the Cattle Birthing Tent. Here you can
watch cows give birth. If that is too much nature for you stop by anyway,
because you can visit with the newborn calves. Or stop at the 4-H youth
building, where there are displays of hatching and recently hatched chicks. Or
just walk around the barns, where might run into a collection of piglets.
this calf was about 1 hour old
Piglets
Historical Museums
There are four historical museums on the fair-grounds, but
my two favorites were the antique tractor exhibit and the Witter Agriculture
Museum. I have always loved machinery so walking around the antique tractors
was fun. It was fascinating to see how this technology has changed over the
decades. All of these tractors were brought to the fair by their owners to be
displayed. This whole exhibit is a volunteer exercise, and I will be talking
more about that in my next piece.
The Witter Agriculture Museum is place where the farm life of
about 150 years ago is featured, with rooms dedicated to house work, tool
making and other aspects of daily life on the farms of New York. These displays
include demonstrations of tasks such as soap making and wood turning.
Soap Making
Wood Turning, using a foot powered lathe
The Concerts at the
Chevy Pavilion
The Chevy Pavilion is the open courtyard in the middle of
the other pavilions. It is home to big name concerts at the fair. While I was
here I saw concerts by Survivor and Macy Gray. There were also shows by The
Commodores, Flo Rida, and ZZTop.
Macy Gray
Someone really enjoying the music
Survivor
The Midway
This year The Midway
really took center stage at the New York State Fair. As part of a $50 million
renovation of the fair, the old racetrack was demolished and the midway expanded
to include over 70 rides. The Midway is the place where kids get to test their
courage, parents get to test their age, and everyone gets to test their
stomachs. There were rides for all ages, and it stayed open way into the night.
And for a price of $25 you could get an unlimited ride ticket that was a
bargain when compared to most amusement parks.
So, there it is, my favorite things to do at the fair.
Nothing here to your taste? That’s okay. There is plenty more to do. Just check
out the web site or app (yes the fair has its own app) and plan out your day.
For
twelve days every year, ending on Labor Day Weekend, Syracuse N.Y. hosts The
Great New York State Fair. Some state fairs might get more publicity (I’m
looking at you, Iowa and Texas) but the New York State Fair can hold its head
up high as a great celebration of farm and fun.
The
first New York State Fair took place in 1841 in Syracuse NY. It was sponsored
by the NY Agricultural Society. For the next 58 years the fair moved around the
state from year to year. In 1889 the Syracuse Land Company donated 100 acres of
land to the Agricultural Society for the building of a permanent fair grounds.
Today the fairgrounds occupy 375 acres and include animal barns and show rings,
exhibition buildings and a midway with about 70 rides.
NY State Fair - 1909 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Nystate-fair_1909.jpg
NY State Fair Midway - 1910 - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Nystate-fair_1910_midway.jpg
I
had not been to the fair since I was 10 years old, so my chance to visit this
year was something I was excited about. I am a city kid. I don’t do animals.
But I have to say that I was entranced by watching people from age 7 to 70
handling animals and showing their skills. For three days I strolled
around the grounds
walking in and out of show rings. I was amazed at skill I saw at getting
animals to do what their
handlers wanted
them to do.
Julie preparing a goat to be shown
4H and FFA
Two
of the groups that work with young people, training them to be farmers and to
learn about the business of farming are the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of
America (FFA).
The
4-H Club
has
been in existence for over 100 years. The four ‘H’s are Heart, Head, Hand
and Health. Today it is run in conjunction with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and over 100 land grant universities around the country. To quote
their web-site:
“Today, 4-H serves youth in rural, urban, and
suburban communities in every state across the nation. 4-H’ers are tackling the
nation’s top issues, from global
food security, climate change and sustainable energy to childhood obesity and
food safety. 4-H out-of-school programming, in-school enrichment
programs, clubs and camps also offer a wide variety of STEM opportunities –
from agricultural and animal
sciences to rocketry, robotics, environmental protection and computer science –
to improve the nation’s ability to compete in key scientific fields and take on
the leading challenges of the 21st century.”
The
Future Farmers of America (FFA) was formed in 1928 in an attempt to deal with
the problem of many young people choosing to leave the farm for the city. In
1935 the New Farmers of America formed as a brother organization for
African-American youth. These two groups
merged in 1965. Today over 600,000 young people participate in over 7,000 FFA
chapters. To quote their web-site:
“Today, the National FFA Organization remains
committed to the individual student, providing a path to achievement in premier
leadership, personal growth and career success through
agricultural education.”
At
the New York State Fair these groups play a key role in developing youth
talent. They ran sessions in which young people were trained on how to judge
the showing of animals. I walked in to the goat tent on my first morning and
witnessed a group of about 50 teenagers being shown 4 goats. They
filled out comment sheets that would later be evaluated and
graded.
Teens judging goats
I
watched three groups of young people, age 7-14, show pigs. Now at first, pig
showing looks like
the sidewalk in Times Square. A
group of seven or eight young men and women enter a 30 x 30 foot show ring with
their pigs. Then for the next 10 minutes or so they guide their pigs back and
forth around the ring, all the while trying to keep eye contact with the judge
and a smile on their face. Since the pigs try to go where they want, and young
people are watching their pig and the judge, there were often traffic jams of
pigs and showmen/women. But judges were great. They moved around to get the
best view of all of the animals and of their handlers, and made sense of the
chaos. He was able to pick out the best handler in all three groups.
Pig Showing
Judging the pigs
By
comparison, watching young people show cattle beef was a calm a stately affair.
The participants enter into a show ring that is about 30 feet by 100 feet. They
parade the cattle around in a line and then line up in an orderly fashion. The
judge watches them and studies the cattle. He calls them out one by one for a
better look, and then places them in their finishing order. Meanwhile these
teenagers have to get the cows to do what they want them to do. To hold their
head up, the stand with their feet placed correctly for the judge, and to move
when and where they need to go.
I
really did enjoy watching these young men and women perform. It was obvious
that they had put a lot of time in preparing for the fair. In fact while I was
watching the pig showing, I overheard a conversation between a mother and a
daughter who couldn’t have been but 4 years old. The child had been asked if
she wanted to show a hog. It was obvious from the conversation that this was
not the first time that she shown a hog. 4 years old! People say that small
farms are dying out, and I don’t know enough about it to comment on that. But
the young people I saw were definitely passionate about what they were doing,
and they certainly
expressed
determination to continue farming when they grew up. While it is not the life
that I would have wanted to live, I certain respect these families and young
people for their commitment.
