There have been all sorts of important news developments this week, but I learned an important new thing this week and it’s vital that I share it with you: Geese can swim underwater, and they do it for fun.
Didn’t see that coming, did you? Me neither.
I went to the State Fair this week with my daughter-in-law and the grandsons, ages 4 and almost 2. If you’ve been to the State Fair many times, you probably think you’ve seen enough of the Village of Yesteryear, the sawmill, the midway with its million calories and all the animals.
If you haven’t been to the fair with a preschooler, you haven’t seen anything at all. It’s not easy to quantify this – it’s not a coat of fresh paint or a newly cut lawn, but the fact is that it’s all brand new with kids under five years old. The undiscovered country.
My daughter-in-law, Jamie, knows her way around horses and so we had to make our way over to the Jim Hunt Horse Complex. There wasn’t a horse show on the day we visited until after we left, but we talked to some folks there and found out that the draft horses were arriving near the practice ring. We walked down there to visit the stables and looked to the other side of the ring. They were unloading the horses.
Her 22-month-old in tow, Jamie marched down to the ring and walked right across, slipping through the fence rails with ease. Winter, 4, and his grandmother trailed behind, but followed. We met some of the horses. Very, very large horses. These were Belgian horses we were told. These are working farm horses and their musculature is quite impressive. They’re not pets, not known for their snuggly nature, but they were happy to have a hello and a nose scratch from Jamie.
We returned to the main fairgrounds and the kids got to climb into and around a firefighting helicopter and meet a giant Smokey the Bear. We told Smokey that we’re sorry he’s been so busy fighting forest fires out west, but we’re grateful for him. Smokey must be over 20 feet tall. Why, I wondered, are these kids NOT freaked out by this? Well, it’s mostly because their mother isn’t and because Smokey is a really nice bear who is a helper. They know that.
As we made our way around the fairgrounds, we saw the many things that are so familiar to all of us. From funnel cakes to fudge, it’s hard to overstate the warmth of these familiar foods and the flood of memories that come with them. The sheer normal quality of the NC State Fair is like a warm blanket of comfort and continuation.
As we walked onto the fairgrounds, I announced “I smell the fair!” Jamie verified my observation: “I smell cow manure!” and the kids filled in the blanks with observances of poop everywhere we went.
Making our way out after lunch with our sleepy kids, we walked out through the poultry tent and then, in our most glorious visit, we went to the duck pond where Mother Goose herself was reigning over some black swans and several other geese and ducks. “I’ve read all your books!” I said.
They played and splashed and then, several of the geese were dunking and swimming, fully submerged at times, racing across the pond. We cackled with delight! I told Winter that I never knew that geese would swim like that, popping into and out of the water-they looked like Olympians doing the butterfly. I knew they could dive into the water to feed themselves with fish, but this was just plain old recreation.
This is why we have a State Fair – so we can see and learn about what our state has to offer and to learn for the first time or rediscover how big a squash can grow and how much fun it can be to watch a goose race across a pond.
The NC State Fair continues through Sunday, October 24. Treat yourself to a day at the fair this year. Rediscover the joy of North Carolina.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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