As we entered the stockyard arena, the unmistakable fragrance of livestock sent me tumbling back into a past life.
It was a horrific sight for a 9 year-old farm boy to see on a northern Ohio late summer afternoon. There was Pal, my hoped-to-be prize winning sheep dangling from the wire fence, its right front leg hopelessly snared in the cruel sharp woven pattern of unforgiving metal. Unable to free the bleeding mangled lamb, I ran to get my father for help. When Pal was freed, it was clear that the animal was mortally injured and would have to be slaughtered. Pal, was my first 4-H project, and within a few weeks would have been shown at the Sandusky County fair. Grand Champion Shropshire or even Reserve Grand Champion was never even a dream, but maybe third runner-up would have been possible. Now any dreams of even being in the show ring were dashed by this freak accident. Now that the fate of Pal was sealed, there would be no week at the fair, no fan fare, no sense of accomplishment for the past 10 months of daily care and feeding, of taming and grooming, of training for the show….just a trip to Anstead’s Meat Market a few miles away. 
Figure 1 Shropshire Sheep. Sheep were among the first animals domesticated. An archeological site in Iran produced a statuette of a wooled sheep that suggests their appearance over 6000 years ago. (Ref)
Pal had been handpicked nearly a year earlier from among several dozen young lambs Art Gressman, a neighboring farmer, had in his flock. My lamb was selected as the one with the best potential for turning into a prize show lamb. Art suggested we raise it with another lamb: “It will do better if you raise it with some company” were his words. He was even willing ‘to throw in’ the runt of his flock just to keep Pal company. So over the course of the next 10 months, Pal and his side kick were diligently feed, tamed, and treated almost as family. Fresh food and water twice a day as they were free to roam with the chickens in the small pasture fenced off just west of our white farm house. Pal and Sidekick were pampered all summer long. Life was good until this fateful day.
Now what to do? Aside from the tragic injury to Pal and his premature trip to the market, there was the shameful scenario ahead of not having an animal to show at the county fair. The shame of letting my 4-H Club down with an “incomplete” grade on my very first project began to cover me like a heavy blanket. This would be a mark that would obviously drag down the average for the whole Washington Township Club. And Mr. Don Bolen, our club advisor, was not going to be happy.
After a tearful family discussion that evening, it was decided that the only way out was to resort to Sidekick. The runt of the litter was going to the fair. A smaller less shapely animal whose development had been stunted by its earlier abandonment, Sidekick had barely made the transition from a lamb to full grown sheep during the year. What Sidekick lacked in the qualities of a prize Shropshire, he made up for in friendliness, having been hand fed with a bottle during his earlier months because his mother had abandoned him after birth – a rare but occasional occurrence in the animal kingdom. In the few weeks before the show, Sidekick was groomed and his wool coat blocked as best we could. Training him to ‘show’ with head up and feet squarely planted in a perfect rectangle was easy. We were soon loading him into the back of Dad’s faded blue 53 Chevy Pickup for the trip to the fairgrounds where we settled into our assigned pen in the sheep tent. At that time, cattle and hogs warranted lodging in the permanent barns around the fair grounds, but chickens, sheep, goats, etc were relegated to tents. –
The day of the big show arrived. Time had come to take Sidekick out into the show ring and see how he would rank among all the other county entries. It will be remembered as one of the more humiliating moments of my life. Feeling the stares of pity as onlookers seemed to be whispering “Look at the pitifully small lamb out there – didn’t that kid even feed it? – what a shame to have to show such an animal at the county fair.”
Sidekick didn’t win any prize, but he held his head up high and kept his feet squarely planted in a perfect rectangle. The next morning all the sheep entries had been judged and the results were pinned on the side of each pen. Sidekick and I received one of those rare white ribbons embossed with a large gold letter “C” – not the more common deep blue ribbon with an ”A” – not the occasional red ribbon with a “B” but the hard-to-find last place white ribbon with a “C”. It was a few days before my 10th birthday, but I still found a place to hid and cry. My parents were there to console me, “At least you finished your project and didn’t let your club down.” Was that worth the humiliation of being in the show ring of the Sandusky County Fair surrounded by what seemed to be millions of onlookers with my runt of a lamb? At the time I didn’t think so. Now looking back 60 years later, I still would have preferred to have found a hole to crawl into. Somehow I survived that experience, and continued to be active in 4-H until leaving the farm for college. My true rewards from 4-H turned out not to be the ribbons.
Now as I watch the youth of today, enthusiastic participants in the annual National Western Stock Show feed, groom and genuinely care for their truly prize animals some 60 years later, I am thankful there is yet another generation that also has the opportunity to personally experience the sacred connection with non-human life – the life that ends to give us continued life – the life we are totally dependent on for our very existence – the life we may only see as food – but the life that provides the indispensable bridge to our only sustainable source of energy, the Sun – the life we must learn to respect if we expect to continue to cohabitate this planet.
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