The fair -- and our lives -- need more preserves

Aug. 03?

I wandered through the county fair this past week, as any good citizen ought to do when offered that opportunity, and made a few observations.

The slices of pizza for $2.50 are getting very slim. No, not that there aren't enough booths offering this snack, but the actual slices of pizza were very slim. Somewhere "slice" has become "sliver."

I appreciated those local acts -- singers and musicians -- who stepped up to the plate and the microphones provided and gave the fair visitors fair entertainment. For those who are best described as non-professional, talent shows and stages made of make-shift materials provide a scarey opportunity to show off a bit. Oh sure, they do the occasional wedding and High Priest party, but no agent is booking them. The fair might be as big as it gets. I applaud their courage. Singing before scutinizing eyes and ears just might be the toughest job in town.

Also, I must mention how few preserves were offered for competition in the home arts building. I wondered as I eyed the scanty bottles of peaches and the half-dozen bottles of jam if canning is becoming a lost art.

I suspect the word "canning" or the more obscure term "preserves" is not often visited in our schools. The concept of water baths and steaming has probably gone the way of the "sewing machine," another waning home art. With the evolution of consumer education and home technology classes moving understandably away from home arts, perhaps it is left to church groups and homes and mothers to instill -- to preserve -- an interest in canning.

And, yes, I understand the economics of canning -- that if the cost of the fruit and the sugars and the bottles, the cost of the equipment and the time spent (figured at even minimum wage) is compared to the cost of a can of peaches, well, it doesn't seem to make sense to preserve at home. But as one LDS leader was wont to say a few decades ago when challenged on the backwards economics of home production, there may come a time when you can't buy a can of tomatoes.

Spouse was once semi-famous -- yes, even to the point of putting them in the fair one year and winning some ribbons -- for her peaches. She used to use the bruised and battered peaches off the ground for juice which was then added to the more-perfect peaches instead of sweetened water for a sugarless but delightfully flavored bottle of fruit. As messy as it was, as sticky as your arms got, as hot as the kitchen became, canning was always a good bonding activity.

I've never entered a bottled item in the fair, myself, but if I could preserve stuff, I do have a short list.
I would have preserved my grandmothers pithy and pointed sayings. Yes, they were oldey-timey and often said in rhyme or song, but she had an odd and easy-going axiom for almost every occasion. Generations were affected by them and now we struggle to remember them all.

I would figure out a way to preserve Garrison Keilor. If you haven't yet discovered the charm and warmth of "Prairie home Companion” you are missing an American treasure. Yes, wearing another hat, Keilor often waxes political, but forget all that and listen to him tell a story. I dare you to let him explain what Memorial Day or July 4th means to small-town America without tearing up. He brings story-telling to the level of an art form.

I would preserve the smell of fresh-cut alfalfa, always intoxicating to me.

I would bottle evening summer thunderstorms and pop open the top whenever I want to sit on the front porch and be awed by nature's strength and raw beauty as the lightning moves along the east mountains of our valleys.

I would preserve Bear Lake before it evolves into something else. In fact, I would have preserved it as it was, say, 10 years ago. Something happened about half-a-decade ago, and suddenly dollar signs began popping out of the ground and people starting using words like "Park City" and "Jackson Hole." Heaven forbid. May Bear Lake always be raspberries and playhouses and public access to sunburns, like it has been in so many of our memories.

I would had preserved "The Dick VanDyke Show." Do you remember how funny it was? How well-written it was? Compare it to, heck, "That 70s Show" and you'll see what I mean.

I recently asked a group of 20- 22-year-olds what they would like to preserve. One described her "perfect day" and wished that she could preserve that day. As summer drifts slowly into an always-too-short autumn in northern Utah, I hope we can all figure out a way to make and preserve a couple of perfect days.

I will look for your Mason jar labeled as such in next year's county fair.