I'm missing the fair for this?

By By Sid Salter / syndicated columnist
July 28, 2004
BOSTON No offense, Sen. Kerry, but I'm missing the Neshoba County Fair for this? And what do I have to show for missing my annual sojourn home to the fairgrounds for a week of rural debauchery, harness racing, gospel music and fried chicken-and-vegetable gluttony?
Speeches by intellectuals. Press conferences. Rebuttals. "Spontaneous" demonstrations and balloon drops. More celebrities and celebrity wannabees wailing on George W.'s political backside than I can count.
Can't find a corndog, a glass of Lindsey's Lemonade or a funnel cake any place. I've never, ever eaten chowder in the month of July.
Boston tea party?
I'd throw every cup of tea in Boston in the harbor for one pone, one half-pone of my momma's cornbread.
Covering the Democratic National Convention here in Bahstun while my friends and family back home are taking in the Neshoba County Fair is nothing short of culture shock.
Let's face it. Here I sit in Massachusetts listening to Yankee politicians rail against Southern demagogues. Like it was yesterday, I can remember hearing a nearly senile Ross Barnett utter that now infamous observation under the Founder's Square Pavilion at Neshoba: "Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that the only time Teddy Kennedy evah turned raht in his lahf was off the bridge at Chappaquiddick!"
Suffice to say that while politicking is under way in both Boston and at the Neshoba County Fair this week, the rhetoric is slightly different.
While Trent Lott, Haley Barbour, Chip Pickering and the rest of Mississippi Republican elite are rattling the tin roof at Neshoba this week, Mississippi's Democratic Party royalty are here basking in the glow of kindred political spirits.
They're doing the convention scene, dutifully listening to speeches, voting on obscure rules and regulations and generally fulfilling their obligations as delegates, alternates and pages.
But they're also taking in the sights here in this lovely old city hard by the Charles. Mississippi folks are adept at finding a good time wherever they venture and one political truism is that Democrats generally are more fun at parties any kind of parties than Republicans.
Miller time?
It's sort of like the difference between going out to a nightclub to listen to the Steve Miller Band or staying home and listening to Mitch Miller records. Republicans won't like that observation, but as was said of Barry Goldwater in 1964: "In your heart, you know he's right."
Mississippi Democratic delegates are sampling a little of everything Boston has to offer. Some are trying to scratch up Red Sox tickets. Others are visiting the Kennedy Library. Still others are touring some of the institutions of higher learning that alas do not field football teams in the Southeastern Conference or the SWAC little schools like Harvard, MIT, Boston College and Boston University.
If any of my fair family and neighbors are reading this that means you, Denley and Snooky let me inform you that the MIT athletic facilities are smaller and far less elaborate than those at Philadelphia High school. I kid you not.
There are about 25 other colleges and universities in the Boston area. Very few of them have football teams, but almost all of them have lacrosse teams. Lacrosse is roughly akin to Choctaw Indian stickball, but far more civilized and with pads. Choctaw stickball is a far more manly game with tons more Bubba appeal.
I miss being at the fair with my family and my friends. But covering the Democratic Convention has had its moments.
I've met a lot of wonderful fellow Mississippians that I didn't know among the delegation and renewed friendship with some I've know for more than 20 years.
Missing a fair has been a character building experience. It's helped me achieve a measure of perspective on the presidential campaign and on the fair.
For those of us who love the fair, we can't imagine sitting it out or being too bored to take part in it. The same can be said for American politics. Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, it's hard to imagine being so apathetic or disconnected that one ignores the election of the president.
But less than half the people eligible to vote in the 2004 election will likely do so. That sad fact resonates from Boston Harbor back to the Coldwater community in Neshoba County, Mississippi.
Sid Salter is Perspective editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Contact him at (601) 961-7084 or
e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com.