Gone Country

Hey y'all! First of all, I apologize for torturing you with my last two posts - first I made you listen to Shooby Taylor, then I made you look at a disgusting monster. This post will be less terrifying. That is, unless you hate country music.

On Wednesday, Katherine, Emily and I headed up to Jackson County to see Josh Turner. I don't normally listen to country, but actually knew who Josh Turner was so when Emily told me she had an extra ticket, I was excited.

The Jackson County fair is unlike any fair I've been to. There was this strange feeling there. First of all, it was much too quiet. Usually at fairs, there's music in the background and carnies yelling at passersby. Which reminds me of a funny story - my brother, Sean, hangs out with a lot of colorful people. They work at the Renaissance Festival, they dress up in costumes, they travel the country selling ocarinas that they make themselves...you get the picture. Nice people, just very colorful. Well, he told me once about how a couple of his friends decided to join a traveling carnival and become carnies. They quit after two weeks, claiming "those people are freaks!" Now, I'm sure that most people who work at a carnival are just normal, nice people, trying to get by, but it's a funny story nonetheless.


But I digress... We wandered the fair before the concert and enjoyed the best part of a fair: the food! Only the healthiest food, of course: pulled pork sandwiches, fries with vinegar, fried Snickers and cotton candy (and yes, we did regret this the rest of the evening!) This was a big thing for me since it was the first time I'd eaten cotton candy since I was six and got sick from it. I marveled at how strange it was that it melted on my tongue as I ate it. Emily looked at me like I was crazy since she has long since forgotten was it was like to have cotton candy for the first time (in over twenty years, in my case).

After eating our weight in fair food we headed up to the grandstand to see the opening act, Jake Owens. That's when the people watching got really interesting. First of all, there seemed to be a dress code. The men were wearing these crazy shirts that are hard to describe, so here's a picture from behind:

This is what I imagine the memo said:

Men:

• Cowboy hats or baseball caps. Camouflage print preferred.
• Shirts with the sleeves torn off and the sides cut out
• Too tight jeans
• Cowboy boots
  

Women:

• Skin, skin, skin!!!!!!

I slowly started to feel like I was taking a trip back in time. I'm from a somewhat small town (which used to be a lot smaller). My best friend lived on a farm and I loved it there. I remember the first couple of times I went to her house, it was like farm fantasy camp. I couldn't get enough of the barn, the wild farm kittens, the silo horror stories, cowboy hats, country music, and so on. As I looked around me at the concert, that all came back to me and I start to really enjoy it. At one point Emily looked at me and said, "these are your people! You're country!" I guess she was right. I mean, how else do you explain liking this song!? (Link) Maybe I am country. I could be worse. (If you don't believe me, go back two posts and listen to a Shooby song). Bye y'all!