Thursday, September 06, 2001
Monster tractor pull and other Labor Day pleasures
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Visiting the Columbia County Fair on Labor Day is a means of reaffirming that all is still well with the basics of the world. It gives you a sense of security to see the black-and white Holsteins, veritable milk machines, peacefully chewing the cud in their fairgrounds stalls, next to the tan sweet-faced Jerseys and Swiss Browns, the white-and-tan Guernseys and the mean-looking black Angus’s bullocks. Freckle-faced kids still bring their prize rabbits, chickens, lambs and goats to the competition, and earnestly explain the advantages of their breed to the passerby. There’s pie and cookies to be had at the local AME, stand and calzone and pepper sausages at the wheeled traveling kitchens that crisscross the Eastern Seaboard during the summer, on their routes from fair to fair, much like the caribou migrating in the Alaskan tundra in search of pasture. And the Midway, with the majestic Ferris wheel and its lesser-profiled companions, lights blazing in the darkening sky, over the sea of booths with carnies offering the visitors opportunities to win outsize stuffed animals in games of skill and chance.
The weighted-down push-penny cases have stacks of quarters precariously hanging over the edges of their ledges, looking like the addition of your 25 c piece will surely tip the balance and reward you with a cascade of silver. Experts have sad tales to tell of how many dozens of coins it takes to defy gravity and get a reward. I’m more likely to invest $2 in a sure draw from the Ducky Pond, where the picker gets a small, medium or large white teddy bear from China. Everybody wins. Another easy one is the basketball toss in the stand populated by green balloon aliens with big eyes and many arms and legs. You see kiddies toting them around the fairgrounds, tossing them up and letting them descend to Earth. .
We came to the Fair after dark to see the new attraction, the Monster Tractor Pull, having missed the usual Demolition Derby with its noise, smoke and fire, held on the harness racing track earlier in the week. The grandstand was filled an hour before, with a lot of big guys, some with earrings and ponytails, their cut-down sweatshirts bulging with muscles, and their ladies sporting tattoos, a few home-made. Among the teenage boys, the style appears to be to shave the sides, with an inch or less of hair on top; among girls modesty prevailed, only a few cared to wear the low-rise jeans seen in the city..
We reached the standee area at the finish line just as a huge plume of black smoke shot in to the air and an unholy piercing engine scream rent the air. Like an atomic explosion, the first contest was on. The scream intensified and we now saw an ordinary Ford farm tractor with huge rear wheels racing toward us on the straightaway, dragging a yellow cab with rails in front, like a heavily front-hung factory fork-lift. The latter was the "sled " A big block of metal was sliding forward on the sled, like the balance on a scale, towards the tractor, gradually weighing down the engine, which gave out in seconds, with a final shriek and a belch of smoke .It had sprinted 240 feet. The helmeted driver took a bow from his steel-barred cab (cables are known to have snapped and whipped around), and drove off. The sled, rented in Minnesota, drew back to be readied for the next contestant, an International tractor using smokeless alcohol instead of dirty Diesel oil. A sweeper and a steam-roller repaired the track, while the spectators sipped their beers and exchanged stories. Tractors named "Drive like you stole it," "20 mules," "Better than sex" ( the grandstand announcer reported that the owner was single and had explained that tractor maintenance cost more than that of a girlfriend, and required 40 hours of preparatory work for 30 seconds of excitement)..The event was won by a French farmer from the Canadian border, whose new tractor bucked high in the air, just like a steer, as it dragged the sled some 270 feet.
The event was run by the NYTPA (tractor pullers association), and participants are classified as two-and four-wheel drive engines (haven’t seen any of the latter), modified and super-stock (smoker and alcohol type) and by weight. There are multi-engine and up to three super-charger types, with all kinds of limitations. You might enjoy the events next summer, the nearest are in Chatham (Columbia Co.), Schagticoke (Rensselaer Co.), or Walton (Delavare Co.).There are 15 events, attracting 60,000 attendees.
Cannot leave Labor Day without talking about the progress in another essential ingredient - the charcoal grill. We have been afficionados for decades, starting in the 1960s with the humble little Hibachi that held a few chops and burgers, easy to light and store, and moving on to an all-American Weber tub, fat as a porker, that held half a bag of briquettes and would burn forever, With two of these on hand, a backyard party of 40 could be supplied with smoke-burned hamburgers, franks and toasted rolls for a whole day, morning till night, provided the ice in the cooler held out.
Some 15 years ago we migrated to the gas and lava rocks variety, for ease of lighting and control. We are on our 2nd propane tank, the first having been declared legally expired by the Hillsdale Agway refill station people, but the Sunbeam still runs despite the demise of the click lighter (I’m back to the "light a match and stand back from the whoosh" technique), although we ourselves have progressed to cooking over aluminum foil, mostly chicken and tender salmon, to avoid the eating of burned stuff.
It was therefore a surprise to find that at Home Depot and Sears the charcoal burner is all but extinct, as is the lava rock intermediary, replaced by a direct flame gas variety, mostly with two cooking surfaces, plus a little gas ring, standing alone to the side. That’s to boil lobster and such while cooking your meat on the main stove, as explained by a K-Mart salesman. The Sunbeam and Coleman varieties are up to $300-400 in price, while a mighty Weber, a control board with two handles built out on the right, where one would place the glass dish with the marinade before slapping the meat onto the surface, is over $600. That’s because it uses less gas, we’re told. It probably has tight plumbing, just as in the kitchen, unlike most gas grills with their loose leaking gas sockets and the gas flow controlled only at the tank level. The humble charcoal range seems to have progressed way beyond the necessary, but that is the process of human development We must try to survive the modern process. Some common sense and sanity still prevails.
Visiting the Columbia County Fair on Labor Day is a means of reaffirming that all is still well with the basics of the world. It gives you a sense of security to see the black-and white Holsteins, veritable milk machines, peacefully chewing the cud in their fairgrounds stalls, next to the tan sweet-faced Jerseys and Swiss Browns, the white-and-tan Guernseys and the mean-looking black Angus’s bullocks. Freckle-faced kids still bring their prize rabbits, chickens, lambs and goats to the competition, and earnestly explain the advantages of their breed to the passerby. There’s pie and cookies to be had at the local AME, stand and calzone and pepper sausages at the wheeled traveling kitchens that crisscross the Eastern Seaboard during the summer, on their routes from fair to fair, much like the caribou migrating in the Alaskan tundra in search of pasture. And the Midway, with the majestic Ferris wheel and its lesser-profiled companions, lights blazing in the darkening sky, over the sea of booths with carnies offering the visitors opportunities to win outsize stuffed animals in games of skill and chance.
The weighted-down push-penny cases have stacks of quarters precariously hanging over the edges of their ledges, looking like the addition of your 25 c piece will surely tip the balance and reward you with a cascade of silver. Experts have sad tales to tell of how many dozens of coins it takes to defy gravity and get a reward. I’m more likely to invest $2 in a sure draw from the Ducky Pond, where the picker gets a small, medium or large white teddy bear from China. Everybody wins. Another easy one is the basketball toss in the stand populated by green balloon aliens with big eyes and many arms and legs. You see kiddies toting them around the fairgrounds, tossing them up and letting them descend to Earth. .
We came to the Fair after dark to see the new attraction, the Monster Tractor Pull, having missed the usual Demolition Derby with its noise, smoke and fire, held on the harness racing track earlier in the week. The grandstand was filled an hour before, with a lot of big guys, some with earrings and ponytails, their cut-down sweatshirts bulging with muscles, and their ladies sporting tattoos, a few home-made. Among the teenage boys, the style appears to be to shave the sides, with an inch or less of hair on top; among girls modesty prevailed, only a few cared to wear the low-rise jeans seen in the city..
We reached the standee area at the finish line just as a huge plume of black smoke shot in to the air and an unholy piercing engine scream rent the air. Like an atomic explosion, the first contest was on. The scream intensified and we now saw an ordinary Ford farm tractor with huge rear wheels racing toward us on the straightaway, dragging a yellow cab with rails in front, like a heavily front-hung factory fork-lift. The latter was the "sled " A big block of metal was sliding forward on the sled, like the balance on a scale, towards the tractor, gradually weighing down the engine, which gave out in seconds, with a final shriek and a belch of smoke .It had sprinted 240 feet. The helmeted driver took a bow from his steel-barred cab (cables are known to have snapped and whipped around), and drove off. The sled, rented in Minnesota, drew back to be readied for the next contestant, an International tractor using smokeless alcohol instead of dirty Diesel oil. A sweeper and a steam-roller repaired the track, while the spectators sipped their beers and exchanged stories. Tractors named "Drive like you stole it," "20 mules," "Better than sex" ( the grandstand announcer reported that the owner was single and had explained that tractor maintenance cost more than that of a girlfriend, and required 40 hours of preparatory work for 30 seconds of excitement)..The event was won by a French farmer from the Canadian border, whose new tractor bucked high in the air, just like a steer, as it dragged the sled some 270 feet.
The event was run by the NYTPA (tractor pullers association), and participants are classified as two-and four-wheel drive engines (haven’t seen any of the latter), modified and super-stock (smoker and alcohol type) and by weight. There are multi-engine and up to three super-charger types, with all kinds of limitations. You might enjoy the events next summer, the nearest are in Chatham (Columbia Co.), Schagticoke (Rensselaer Co.), or Walton (Delavare Co.).There are 15 events, attracting 60,000 attendees.
Cannot leave Labor Day without talking about the progress in another essential ingredient - the charcoal grill. We have been afficionados for decades, starting in the 1960s with the humble little Hibachi that held a few chops and burgers, easy to light and store, and moving on to an all-American Weber tub, fat as a porker, that held half a bag of briquettes and would burn forever, With two of these on hand, a backyard party of 40 could be supplied with smoke-burned hamburgers, franks and toasted rolls for a whole day, morning till night, provided the ice in the cooler held out.
Some 15 years ago we migrated to the gas and lava rocks variety, for ease of lighting and control. We are on our 2nd propane tank, the first having been declared legally expired by the Hillsdale Agway refill station people, but the Sunbeam still runs despite the demise of the click lighter (I’m back to the "light a match and stand back from the whoosh" technique), although we ourselves have progressed to cooking over aluminum foil, mostly chicken and tender salmon, to avoid the eating of burned stuff.
It was therefore a surprise to find that at Home Depot and Sears the charcoal burner is all but extinct, as is the lava rock intermediary, replaced by a direct flame gas variety, mostly with two cooking surfaces, plus a little gas ring, standing alone to the side. That’s to boil lobster and such while cooking your meat on the main stove, as explained by a K-Mart salesman. The Sunbeam and Coleman varieties are up to $300-400 in price, while a mighty Weber, a control board with two handles built out on the right, where one would place the glass dish with the marinade before slapping the meat onto the surface, is over $600. That’s because it uses less gas, we’re told. It probably has tight plumbing, just as in the kitchen, unlike most gas grills with their loose leaking gas sockets and the gas flow controlled only at the tank level. The humble charcoal range seems to have progressed way beyond the necessary, but that is the process of human development We must try to survive the modern process. Some common sense and sanity still prevails.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:01 AM 
