Having raised steers for four years as part of my 4-H indoctrination education, I’m no stranger to the fair circuit — where beef judging is, was and always will be an artform.
For this reason (and this reason alone) I try to keep up — as best I can a full state removed — with the state of all fairs back home.
Knowing as I do that the next one coming up is the Alabama National Fair in Montgomery, I decided to check their website to see what joys lay in store for ticketholders.
Livestock competitions: CHECK
::: Black Baldies 4EVAR! :::
Art competitions: CHECK
::: Lynnelle’s needlepoint is always a hit :::
Giant vegetable competitions: CHECK
::: You just cannot go wrong with gourds :::
Pig races: CHECK
::: Actual pigs, not Chett’s ex-girlfriends :::
Circus: CHECK
::: Because ya just gotta :::
Welcome Home Celebration “in honor of our Vietnam Veterans“: CHEC …
Wait.
What?
Welcome Home?!?
Now, I do believe it’s never too late to welcome troops home and celebrate their courage and sacrifice. And, while I know history says the Vietnam War ended when the North Vietnamese army took control of Saigon in 1975 — I also know that not all of our soldiers have yet to come home more than 20 years later.
But I gotta say that with troops on active duty in skirmishes, wars, to-do’s and whatnots all over the world, most notably these days in the Middle East — it strikes me as 20-shades of ‘huh?’ that the fair gods of Alabama went the Vietnam route.
I have to believe it means one of three things:
1. The very last of all of the American soldiers still in Vietnam have been discovered to be alive and well … in Alabama
2. Sooooo many of the Alabama guardsmen and women are on permanent rotation in Afghanistan and Iraq that the Vietnam vets are the only ones around to welcome
3. The fair’s ‘creative team’ decided “Awwww fuckit! Better late than never!”
I know which one I think it is …
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