“You should enter some of your peppers in the fair.”

The county fair.

When I was in fifth grade I performed a baton routine at the Grady County Fair in Chickasha,Oklahoma.  That same night I won a ten-speed bike that I really wasn’t able to ride comfortably for about five more years.   It didn’t matter that my mom bought all of the tickets that she was supposed to sell.  I had won.  It was a fabulous night.

The memory of that fabulous night was all it took to peak my interest and begin a perpetual thinking cycle this past week.  Here’s what happened…

Our local extension agent and his wife were attending a party at my house, and we were touring my garden.  He innocently suggested that I participate in the local county fair.  My mind started spinning like a Ferris wheel.

I think I told everyone at the party that I “had been asked” to enter my peppers in the fair.  I even commented to my principal that I would probably not be able to attend the local required in-service meetings because I was going to have to get my vegetables ready to be judged.  Of course, she knew I was kidding about that.

Or was I?

I became obsessed with the fair.  I started my quest for information on the Internet but got my best advice from a friend who lived nearby.  He mentioned that there were several other award-winning ribbon opportunities that I could explore.  I quickly ran to the local gas station to buy the four-page paper that held my ticket to the grandstand.  I then ventured out to collect my prized produce.

I knew from the paper that I needed six peppers.  The extension agent told me that the six peppers should be similar in size.  That’s all I had to go on.  I really needed a rubric.  I needed to know exactly what was expected of my peppers to earn them a blue ribbon.

I walked the rows of peppers like I was in a hall of mirrors.  I would stop at a beautiful red one, inspect it, and move on to a fat green one.  Could they be different colors?  I don’t know.  I didn’t have a rubric. Six peppers.  Similar size.  That’s all the information I had.  I finally reasoned that they needed to be exactly alike.

Finally, entry day arrived.  I completed the necessary paperwork and handed over all of my hard work to people I didn’t even know.  My final stop was the vegetable area.  As I stopped to give my peppers to the member of the fair board something caught my eye.  I glanced at the shelves of entries.  Right in the middle of the  okra and corn submissions was a stack of peppers….. five green with a single  red one placed intentionally on top of the stack.

I hope those are the only two entries.

I’m thinking second place won’t be that bad.

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