Sell that Steer

This past weekend as I continue my quest to discover every event that I have been long missing in San Jose and the Bay area in general, I progressed to the Santa Clara county fair. Yes I am still doing this as a volunteer medic so I am actually working these events, but this allows for a rare view of the inner-workings of these events. For my avid readers (or bored readers), this event was run so much smoother than the previous one last weekend which you might remember me talking about as out of control egos.

But lets talk about the county fair. As many of you know I was born and raised in Milwaukee, a not so small town in Wisconsin where within 10 minutes you can be in countryside. Driving into the fair along a dusty dirt road mixed with hay and thistles, small dust storms kicked up by the tires as animals are led from vehicle to pens by children, I had flashbacks of home. These are no city-born kids here, these are kids and young adults that are not spoiled MTV kids, these kids pull 2500 lb bulls through hay and jump over fences in flip-flops, all the time never breaking a sweat. These are 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America) young adults who buy animals, raise them for a period of time spending both time and money caring for them, feeding them, and grooming them, all in preparation for these shows. They then make it to the show, and finally auction off the animals afterwards for someone else’s food. There are more than a few moist eyes in some of these kids, but they run back and start the process all over again next summer. One girl actually dislocated her should with only one event left (she had been there for 9 hours that day), if she missed that last event she would be disqualified. When we came up, she told us in no uncertain terms that with or without our permission she was going to compete in leading her massive steer around the ring. I capitulated and ask if she would wear a sling. She would not acquiesce as she needed both hands to control the massive but beautiful animal. So here she goes running this animal with a probable dislocated shoulder, what a sight to see! The amazing thing is as they are grooming, cleaning, feeding, leading these animals they are doing it in full uniform which is white shirt, white pants, white socks and a green tie. Now far be it from me to talk about cleanliness, but WOW. I can’t keep a pair of white anything clean for more than a few minutes, let alone around a dozen pigs (literally). You will never find a more fun loving, cheerful, Clean group of people around, they were a pleasure to work with. (favorite t-shirt from this area: We Farm, You Eat)

Then we move to the other area of the fair, specifically the carnival and exhibit areas. What a contrast to be seen and barely believed. Let me start with I do not believe myself prejudiced and I have seen all walks of life and respect the places they come from and the challenges they face. This fair takes place in south San Jose which has its own interesting neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are primarily lower class areas with numerous gang and drug problems. This fair is an excellent place for them to hang out with others and start problems. As such there is quite a large presence of county Sheriffs, as well special gang task forces and probation officers. But the armed presence is not what I wanted to bring forth, but rather the clientele. First if there was ever any doubt, tattoos are most certainly in, but in areas that I expected less and less. Everyone knows it is chic for females to get tats on their lower back or shoulder blades, but the predominate location for these girls was right on the top of their breasts. Of course at that point they had to wear clothing that showed up these tats which brings up the next part of this story, but first lets take a step back.

Due to the size of this event and the thickness of the crowds we end up putting a few medics on bikes (and yes I do mean the manual bikes) with about 45lbs of medical equipment on the back including AEDs (Defibrillators), Oxygen and all sorts of other supplies. As I am one of the younger volunteers (i.e. under the age of 50) I am instantly volunteered for the bike patrol with another medic in training. So I am in long pants, my snazzy white uniform shirt, my bat belt with every imaginable device needed for WWIII, with a bike helmet to top it off like an angel on a tree. So a majority of Saturday and Sunday was spent with my butt on a nice hard seat circling the area assisting our guests with blisters and small cuts. It was a hot weekend and thus a certain amount of loose or limited clothing was expected in the crowds, and having seen kids in this day and age my expectations were I thought pretty reasonable. How wrong I was. We had mothers who clearly were not old enough to drink, and only passable at best to vote, carry a child in one hand and trying to pick up on the ‘gangster’ boys on the other. Everyone is of course smoking (since we know that is wonderfully healthy for infants), and trying to do everything they can to attract attention in a way that implies they don’t give a damn. Watching the dynamics of girls trying to be picked up by key guys from either the whites or blacks (Not race, their colors, which translates I guess to reds and blues), and the guys trying to intimidate each other and showing ownership over these girls I realize how little I know about the lives in the different social-economic classes. I mean are these girls trying to get picked up by the dominant members of the gang for status, or protection or financial gain? There was one girl who had on her shirt, ‘his bitch’, and this is just one of the many similar t-shirts. Others actually had tats that said, ‘property of ‘his name’’. This gave flashbacks to the animals in the other half of the fair being branded. Overall I found this sad. This is what politicians talk about when they refer to the inner city lives, but I wonder how many of them really see it? How many of them see a guy full out hit a girl for looking at another guy on the street? How many of them see these 15 year olds carrying a child and virtually throwing themselves on a different guy than the father (different race)? The probation officers spent some time with us and was educating us that over 75% of the kids there had been in jail at least once, and that number is just increasing. This is a cycle we have got to fix, and no I don’t know the answer, but it is alarming to see.

More on the fair in the next entry, but for now I need to get back to work.