“Such a long drive…” These four words came to me again and again during another vehicular hike down a long roadway, the first being the trip I took to Annap0lis to meet with State Senator Guy Guzzone (D-13). I’m a city slicker, after all, born and raised on the Island of Manhattan. There are long distances and commutes of all sorts there, to be sure, but they’re broken up by traffic lights, honking, strange looks from pedestrians, the aromas of whatever dining establishment you’re passing by, alternately crowded residential neighborhoods and even more crowded commercial ones, and the sensation of bouncing up and down on the potholed pavement of the city streets. It’s not just all one big stretch of road that looks the same and feels increasingly rural, almost remote. If the scenery on Route 144, off of which Fairgrounds Road is just a hop, skip, jump, and a cruise in a rented car away was any indication, my mini-sojourn to the Howard County Fairgrounds would fill me with the inimitable restoration and healing that comes when you’re surrounded by bucolic scenery. When I got out of my car, that feeling that comes with planting your foot on Earth and being connected to the land filled me, and all I could think was–it feels so right.
As I turned right, in fact, onto Fairgrounds Road, the tires of my rented Ford Focus made the familiar, frictive noise of rubber on gravel, and I pulled into what I felt was an unwisely makeshift parking spot, devoid of signage or pavement as it was. My devil may care attitude–yes, this is what passes for throwing caution to the wind for a Colleen Morgenthau of 66 years, though it never was much more than that, to be frank–found its necessary origin in that I had people to talk to. The first two were Natalie Ziegler and Katie Fry Hester. I met the two as we three stood underneath the intense mid-June Maryland heat on the dusty campus of the Howard County Fairgrounds.
This Land Is Our Land
Ziegler is a petite woman with strawberry blonde hair and a knowing grin. She owns a farm in Western Howard County and is one of two Democrats running for State Delegate in Maryland’s District 9A. The other is Steven Bolen. Ziegler, Hester, and I talked about the importance of farming in Howard County. I had originally thought they’d be my impromptu teachers on the Fair Association as well, but Ziegler explained to me that though the two do a great deal of work together, they aren’t the same entity.
Related: Colleen spent an hour with State Senator Guy Guzzone (D-13).
Ziegler and Hester often campaign alongside each other. Hester, who holds your gaze and smiles often, bringing her point home. Before the two would be off to meet with constituents at various early voting locations around the county, Hester, her eyes wide with sincerity and her voice powerful with resolve, said, “We need to invest in farmers and grow our economy in Howard County through value-added agriculture.” That practice included turning milk into cheese, fruit into marmalade, and grapes into wine, for three examples.
That’s one of the reasons, Ziegler said, that the Farm Bureau was so vital.
Bolen was similarly passionate about supporting local agriculture when I spoke with him over the phone later that day, saying, “We need to encourage farm-to-table and farm-to-restaurant, grow-local, produce-local, food-sourcing agri-business in Howard County.”
Back at the Fairgrounds, Ziegler and Hester had a few more minutes to spare before they were left to meet voters. Ziegler’s innocent smile is the perfect complement to the wry comments that she delivers in such a deadpan it takes a moment for their hilarity to register. But I found myself doubling over with laughter more than once in response to them. The first time was when I asked what the purpose was of the Howard County Farm Bureau was. It sometimes works in concert with the Howard County Fair Association, whose grounds I was on in West Friendship, Maryland.
Growing Food, Growing Awareness
“An alarming number of people think their food comes from a store,” Ziegler said with such an over-it lilt in her voice I had to ask her to excuse me for laughing so much. She told me this was a challenge both the Farm Bureau and the annual Howard County Fair Association faced in bridging the (sub)urban/rural divide that looks to be, as Robert and I get to know Howard County, one of the central tensions that animate life in Howard County. Hence, a central goal of the Farm Bureau, according to Ziegler, is to help people understand where their food comes from.
“The Farm Bureau really tries to remind people of their connection to the land,” she told me.
Howard County’s fate is inextricably linked to that of the more than 300 farms in it, if for no other reason than the value-added agriculture Hester had mentioned, Ziegler said.
Ziegler turned the three of us back to talk of the Fair then, noting that it’s a fun way for families and kids in the community to come together in a setting that underscores the goods these vital area farms produced. I felt eager, at this, for the fair to happen, which won’t be until August 4th and then through the 11th. Now, it’s something to look forward to, and that’s always good.
I thanked Hester and Ziegler for their time and shook their hands. They both smiled and were off to canvass door-to-door in a nearby neighborhood.
I watched them walk, glancing at each other as they chatted with a collegial warmth, in the direction of my next stop on the fairgrounds, the office of Fair Association Board member Vaughan Turner. He had told me it was in the first building on my right that I’d see after entering the property. I decided to explore it for a bit before I was scheduled to speak with him, the General Manager of the Fairgrounds. Turner books the 40 to 50 events held each month on the Fairgrounds, which includes arranging how the sprawling acreage will accommodate them.
Despite such a prominent role in the day-to-day functioning of the Fairgrounds, Turner’s office is humble–if cavernous–and not easy to find. At least it’s not easy to find for spatially-challenged Colleen. He said he’d come out of the basement workspace in which he dwells during the day to meet me. From afar, like a vision, in the sweltering heat, I saw Turner standing squarely, arms folded, in a pinkish shirt and light-blue shorts, and I worried he’d be cross with me. I walked quickly toward him and began loudly announcing an embarrassed apology for being so terrible at finding his office. His face blossomed into a big-hearted, lips-parted smile and he wouldn’t hear of it. His vigorous handshake jostled the papers and chargers I’d brought with me and were messily, barely nestled against my torso.
The Howard County Fair Association: the Basics, and Then Some
“One thing everyone thinks is that the Fairgrounds is owned by the county. But it’s not,” Turner told me when we were seated comfortably in his cool, dimly lit, and neatly kept office a few minutes later. I’d asked him what would surprise most people to know about the Fairgrounds. The Howard County Fair Association is a private entity, he told me. The Howard County Farm Bureau, on the other hand, is the local arm of a separate organization, though that too, is a private one.
The Fair Association’s aim, Turner told me is to promote agriculture in Howard County. I felt, as silly as it sounds, calmed by this, as trying to wrap my head around all the fair/farm, public/private nuances was making me feel dense. I appreciated Turner’s simple, clear statement.
“Pretty much every day of the week there’ something going on that would be of interest to a lot of people,” he said. Those events are opportunities for people to learn about local farming and have fun while doing so. The top three events each year, in terms of number of attendees he said, were the fair, the sheep and wool festival, and the various dog shows that occur on the Fairgrounds. He cited an upcoming Indian Pow Wow, coming up on the third weekend in July, as an example of an event that might be lesser known but just as instructive and enjoyable.
And: Robert chatted with Josh Tulkin, head of the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter.
I lay a concerned hand on my heart and asked him to assure me it was an authentic Pow Wow and not some ill-conceived minstrelsy. He nodded vigorously, raising his eyebrows with concern, and said, “Oh, no–it’s real.” I sighed and smiled.
Turner’s worked at the Fairgrounds for more than a decade, and he told me the most rewarding aspect of his time there had been and is the opportunity he’d been given to meet and talk to all the people he’d come across. Our talk turned once again to the Fair, then, as he conveyed his hope that HoC0-ans would come out to see the dozens of exhibits and how each might benefit them and the county.
I asked Turner why I should come to the Fair this year as someone hoping to understand what Howard County is all about.
He was quick and eager to answer, telling me, “To understand what all is here and how that might benefit you–at the fair you look for how things are grown, how animals are taken care of, canning, quilting. One of the things I always enjoy is the Draft Horse show. We have a commercial building where a lot of local businesses have a booth, the historical society booth, the election people have a booth.” Colleen was sold!
Turner told me visitors could find fresh produce every day of the week at the Fairgrounds during the fair. The same vendors sell their produce every week throughout the year near Kendall Hardware on Route 108 in Clarksville.
In the same vein, Bolen said the kind of agricultural progress he intended to work toward if elected to represent Howard’s District 9A as a State Delegate this November would be about nurturing a vibrant, local farm culture. “We need to encourage farm-to-table and farm-to-restaurant grow-local, produce-local food sourcing agri-business in Howard county.”
Horses, Of Courses
At a recent visit to someone whose comforting counsel I must admit I miss since Robert–the Ro in RoCo–and I have been exploring Howard County the last few weeks is Dr. S. Hassan Naqvi, my internist back in Manhattan. I thought of how, during our last meeting before Robert and I left Manhattan, Dr. Naqvi told me to make certain I got a good 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise several times a week as I followed up all this farm-and-fair talk with some wandering about the Fairgrounds
Two pygmy horses grazed on tufts of grass nearby. I walked toward them and met their caretakers, Ben “The Viper” Holland and Larry Rundle, the proprietors of the Lewis and Clark Circus. Rundle stopped playing hackeysack to talk to me about their mini-big top business.
“We’re getting ready to leave, actually,” he said, as Holland peered out of the trailer we stood next, wondering, I assume, who this gray-haired woman asking questions was. It was me. I began snapping photos on my phone of their little horses and the big llama that suddenly fell to the ground on and began twisting around on his back in the dirt, almost like a cat. Holland and Rundle declined to have their pictures taken as they were out of costume. They instead directed me to the website for the Lewis and Clark Circus
This year for the first time, the Fairgrounds served as an early voting location for the primary election that, as of the day before, was upon us. And that day, a woman with short, gray hair and a confident, wide-legged stance wearing a red tee shirt with the name “Gail Bates” emblazoned on the lapel, spoke with me. We had an immediate rapport as she regaled me with anecdotes about the goings-on at the fairgrounds. In one such tale, she said horses on the fairgrounds had been getting riled up by the cars speeding by on Route 144, and so the county planted a row of trees she directed my attention to. These trees served as a”horse-calming barrier.” I smiled at the quirky story quirkily told. As she walked to her car, she stopped, turned back slightly and said, “I’m Gail Bates, by the way,” she said with a mischievous grin. “See–I’m not as bad as they say.”
And I thought, “No, she’s not! I wonder what all the fuss is about!” When I looked up her legislative record later at home, utter devastation splintered through me as if I were a glass pane cracking. Bates voted against a bill that would have made illegal “conversation therapy” aimed at LGBTQI people. I sat back, forced down the last bite of my lunch down my throat, sickened as I felt, and remembered Bruce. He was my best friend in high school, and his parents couldn’t accept that he was gay. For years the family struggled with it, until one day I came over to his house to meet him to ride our bikes to a nearby park to drink sodas and talk. His mother was sitting on the garage floor, Bruce’s limp body in her lap, holding his blue face in her hands screaming and begging him to come back to her. He’d killed himself by locking himself in the family’s garage with his car turned on.
“Yes, Gail,” I thought,”You’re a pleasant person to talk to and I appreciate the information and colorful anecdotes about horse-calming, but what amounts to a vote in favor of ‘conversion therapy’ is a dealbreaker for me. My best friend, one who was so smart, funny, kind, loyal, and generous might still be with us today, we might have gotten to grow into adulthood together if attitudes like the one underlying all arguments for conversion therapy hadn’t and didn’t exist: that to be LGBTQI is a state of being that needs repair, that it’s wrong.
I also unexpectedly happened upon David Yungmann, a Republican running to represent Howard County’s District 5 on the County Council. His bronzed good looks and quick charm made it clear why he’d already had a successful career in real estate.
Minds Meet In the Heat
At this point, back at the Fairgrounds, I’d reached my hot-weather limit, and I decided to head back to the RV to eat an early dinner with Robert, complete with generous helpings of locally-grown kale and spinach that I’d picked up on my way back to my oddly parked rental car. My feet wouldn’t move as I was struck by a pang of yearning for this oasis of local wonders–history, commerce, people. It felt like such a microcosm of the larger area, Howard County, that I was falling in love with, like a favorite room in your house. The knowledge that I’d be back for the fair during the first week in August, if not sooner to take part in another of the myriad activities and services offered there, comforted me.
As I drove home, I listened to Don’t Rain on My Parade, by Barbra Streisand, my favorite singer, of course.
“Life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter,” she crooned. And I thought it was the perfect day for me and Robert to share a bowl of Butter Pecan ice cream, which Turner had told me was his favorite.
–Colleen Morgenthau
Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses)nget to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. They want to take you along with them, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.