Silly Season Fails to Rear Its Idiotic Head
If you ask me, this is one sad headline.
Last August I had a great time talking about why August has long been known as the silly season. It’s a month when everyone agrees we need to disappear for awhile. The last eight months wear us down. The next four months will be manically packed with new endeavors and holidays. August is our pause, our release valve. If we’re lucky to escape, we escape. If we don’t all we want is to lie low and don’t invite trouble to cross our threshold. Grand-powers-that-be and those who think they are do us all a great favor by closing up shop and retreating to their lavish lairs.
However, this is a challenge for the news media. Nothing happens in August but they have to say something. In the past they reported on late summer’s more pressing concerns, often having to do with animals. For instance, dogs surfing and small-town blackouts caused by cows scratching themselves against power poles. England reported on squirrels so high on the cocaine they found in a local drug dealer’s hideout, that they became addict-thin and aggressive as hell looking for more coke. Most regrettably, the country also lost their best-loved carp who died at the age of 25.
America Eats! enlivened the season with a story about Agnes, the five pound possum who settled into my tree, delighting me for the four weeks of the month and frustrating my incompetent hunting dog. This piece included a report on an interesting trip down to Mena, Arkansas where possums are something of a legend but I failed to find a single person willing to divulge their family’s possum recipe. Not that Agnes was ever in danger of falling into one of my pots. (Re: my love for her + the incompetent dog’s hunting skills.)
Horribly, this August, like every other blasted aspect of this year, is anything but a silly month, as it continues the trail of natural and human tragedies and criminal proceedings. The return of election season is the final nail hitting my last nerve. The news is giving us nothing but anxiety rather than smiles. I don’t know about you but this has resulted in a dearth of lighthearted conversations at barbecues, picnics, and the local beach and swimming holes. Even pickleball, which by it’s very nature is the pinnacle of silliness, has evolved into an aggressive sport as hard paddles twack heavy plastic balls causing player injuries and headaches to people living near the courts. If you ask me, righ there is a sign of our national mental health crisis.
Now comes the Iowa State Fair which opened last week and will continue on until this Sunday. Many other state fairs are happening at the same time and there’s others into the fall. I happen to have gone to many of them and I can tell you they are always filled with bucket loads of silliness.
Iowa, though, God help it, suffers the hapless fate of being the first in line as a must stop for politicians chasing goverment employment in every catageory from mayorial to presidental. The standard play list involves making a speech and afterwards spending a few hours mingling with the hoi polloi. They shake everyone’s hand, coo over kids, go on a couple of rides, and try their luck at gaming booths. This is how political animals show they are as human as the rest of us.
In my mind, though, it’s what they do and don’t eat that’s a real clue to their qualifications for the job they’re interviewing for. A favorite stop is at the grill near the pork hall with live pigs squeeking in the background. The candidates pick up a spatula and begin a test of their crisis management skills as they manuver pork cutlets over the grill flames to ensure they’re safely ready for deployment to the restless crowd. A dexterity test is next, involving their ability to walk and talk while eating a pork chop at the same time or at least until the right publicity photograph is taken. Once this is achieved, the barely eaten chop is discretely handed to an aide who throws it away when no one is looking.
An unofficial image search reveals that there must be a campaign rule that all candidates must have a corn dog. Perhaps this tests their mettle because unfortunately there’s no way to be photographed doing this without the shot coming off as pornographic.
And yet, they persevere which seems to underscore how dedicated these people are in insisting they are just like what they think Americans are, happy to stuff themselves with preposterous food. But Americans are smart and find it downright hilarious to watch their smarmy pretense of enjoying every last bite.
Except for Ted Cruz. During his 2016 stop he refused to take a little paper cup full of fried cheese curds from an astonished looking woman. For the record, cheese curds are made-to-order salty cheez doodles, one of America’s most beloved snacks. At the time he was polling neck-and-neck with Donald Trump (who at least held a pork chop) but soon afterwards tanked, perhaps because of the cheese curd incident coupled with more people getting to know him.
Politicians have been coming to state fairs ever since the New York State Fair took place in Syracuse in 1832. You can see why—fairs are an opportunity to capture the attention of a mass of eligible voters. But, damn, they spoil the fun for the rest of us as we quickly realize that, no matter how vast the fair grounds are, there is no place to hide from them.
Here’s how troubling this August is—even the Iowa State Fair seemed more melancholy than silly. Pictural evidence from last week’s presidential candidates car crash appears to bear out that not one of them ate a corn dog. Unless they refrained the news photographers trailing them, they may not have visited the food courts at all. The exception was the pork and hamburger grills: Pence and his wife showed real flare, DeSantis wielded his spatula while precariously balancing his two-year-old daughter upon his shoulders. Trump stood behind the grill but only waved at his supporters, although at some point he courted danger when he leaned over the hot coals to shake some hands. Nikki Haley displayed her shooting prowess with what looked like a laser gun and Robert Kennedy gave a rambling speech but at least showed some moral courage when he back peddled his position on abortion.
If you ask me, none of them were very respectful of American traditions and values.
But, we little folks full of great humor are not fools and know how to salvage a silly season. We have sixteen days to ignore the news and attend fairs to praise chickens and Clydesdale horses; hog wrestling and truck pulls; butter cows and quilt displays. Dance at the evening concerts and late into the night in the beer halls. Be young on the bumper cars, roller coasters, spinning tea cups, and tiny race car racing. Smile at the whirling lights that rival the evening’s stars. And take a deep breath of the air so infused with illicit scents that even a stuffed belly hankers more.
This isn’t silly but it’s timely. Theodore Roosevelt at the 1901 Minnesota State Fair where he gave one of his most famous speeches.
He pledged his support of laborer and respect for their work and underscored the necessity for our country to be deferential in our engagement with other nations and understand our own place in the world. Much of what Roosevelt said is relevant to today and to one or two of the candidates who visited the Iowa State Fair last week.
This is a part of his speech:
A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick – you will go far.” If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. Whenever on any point we come in contact with a foreign power, I hope that we shall always strive to speak courteously and respectfully of that foreign power.
Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice. Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice being done us in return. Let us further make it evident that we use no words which we are not which prepared to back up with deeds, and that while our speech is always moderate, we are ready and willing to make it good. Such an attitude will be the surest possible guarantee of that self-respecting peace, the attainment of which is and must ever be the prime aim of a self-governing people. …
You may read the full text here.
I'm happy tou liked it, thanks Domenica. Isn't that excerpt crazy relevant? But he didn't eat at the fair
Great read, Pat, and thank you for that Roosevelt excerpt. Ever relevant.