It’s true; I was once among the ‘Children of the Corn’

A while back I wrote a column detailing the nefarious criminal activities of my youth; namely, the theft from Cook’s Five and Dime of a penlight and two Spiderman comics. I was in fourth grade.

Apprehended by store security, I was turned over to the tender mercies of my old man. He didn’t ask me why I did it, didn’t make an appointment for me to see a counselor, didn’t ask a pediatrician to prescribe Ritalin. He did not wail and gnash his teeth, wondering where he and my mother had gone wrong.

He dragged me home and walloped the portions of my body usually associated with sitting until I no longer could. I did not steal again.

Except once.

It was the August following my foiled “flashlight caper.” I was as old as a kid is in fifth grade—a kid who flunked fourth grade the first time around, I mean.

My family, the whole troupe, was visiting my Grandma Seeley’s house, what we at the time called “the farmhouse,” despite the lack of an attached farm. Grandma’s house was sort of out in the country—what we city kids thought of as the country, anyway.

The visit followed the usual Sunday afternoon custom: mom and grandma in the kitchen putting up a big picnic lunch; dad, grandpa and Uncle Ray sitting around the back yard drinking tea, beer or whiskey; sisters and cousins pulling weeds from grandmother’s garden while my brothers foraged for nubbly toads beneath the rhubarb plants crowding thick along the side of the house.

I spent the afternoon as I often did, tramping through the nearby woods, carrying an old pillowcase in which to stash interesting pine cones, sparrow skulls or caterpillars. I was only ten minutes into my hike when the woods petered out and something I had never before imagined unfolded like a green and gold curtain before my eyes: an entire field full of corn, just growing wild!

I had always assumed corn was manufactured pretty much like everything else—in a Newark factory or possibly somewhere in Japan. To find it—and in such abundance, just growing out of the ground—well...I immediately set about filling the pillowcase with ear after ear of the free corn.

The scant biceps on my skinny arms stood out as I lugged the pillowcase back to the house.

There, to my surprise and dismay, I was chastised mightily for perpetrating such a heinous transgression and lectured on the dangers inherent in stealing from farmers. (It turns out farmers grow corn on purpose with the intent of selling it.) I was warned about the horrific afterlife awaiting those who break the Seventh Commandment. I was confined to the backyard for the rest of the day, lest I be tempted to appropriate any other “free” stuff I might find lying about.

But my grandmother, ever the pragmatist and not particularly concerned about what the Pope might have to say on the subject, stripped and boiled the corn anyway. The entire family partook of the delectable fruits of my misdemeanor, thereby sending a mixed message and confusing me unto this very day.

I still can’t pass a supermarket bin full of corn without wishing I had a pillowcase.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

The county fair is the only place for corndogs

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I went to the county fair the other day. Since moving to the sticks over a decade ago, I’ve tried to embrace my rural surroundings and all that implies.

I maintain a small garden (‘taters and onions this year—peppers last), I bought a chain saw and taught myself to operate it without cutting off any important appendages, I drive a pickup truck and actually use it to haul stuff.

I’m one flannel shirt from becoming Norm Abram. (PBS viewers will get that one.)

But the thing that most says “country living” to me is the county fair. Horses, pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, bunnies, goats … all raised by 4-H kids in anticipation of this one week out of the year. The week when the critter they’ve cared for, nurtured and loved for the past 10 or 11 months is sold at auction and turned into cheeseburgers.

Frankly, I don’t know how they do it. You’ve gotta be born out here to feel comfortable with that, I think. I could never eat a steak I’d been feeding hay to and tucking in for the night the week before.

I’ve seen “Charlotte’s Web.” I know how traumatic the experience can be, even for farm kids.

At any rate, the animals are just a part of the fair. There’s the merchant’s building, which used to be filled with people from Peru selling jewelry made from clay and sweaters knitted from llama wool. These days it contains too many desperate politicians who want to shake my hand and loud women urging me not to get an abortion. Even the fair’s got to change with the times, I guess.

Despite the loud women and politicians, I still go through the merchant’s building each year. There are still a few clay jewelry sellers, after all.

Then there are the exhibit buildings, where the arts, crafts, home-canned vegetables, flowers and dioramas are displayed. The paintings and photos are my favorite. Everything from really, really good art, right on down to paintings that almost certainly have numbers on the canvas under the paint, are on display there. The talented, as well as those not burdened with great artistic skills—all receive equal billing and encouragement at the fair! It’s like elementary school for adults, and I, for one, love it. Everything in life should be like that.

The absolute best part of the fair, however, and the reason I go back year after year, is the corndogs.

Corndogs, to my way of thinking, are the perfect food. They’re compact, great tasting, greasy as all get-out, and have no nutritional value whatever. They are a treat to be scarfed down once a year, in abundance, only at the fair—the only place on earth (save for that “Pronto Pup” place in Grand Haven) that they’re prepared properly.

I recommend eating about half-a-dozen. It makes you slightly nauseous for a day or two, but it’s worth it.

For those worried about the calories, I suggest eating all the corndogs your belly will tolerate, then going for a ride on The Zipper. I can’t endorse bulimia, but hey, accidents happen, and those midway workers keep hoses handy for a reason.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.