It was the 1989 Picton Fair.

My friends and I, the entire 4H Dairy Club membership, had spent hours going over all the tenets of proper showmanship. Big circle. Head up. Keep Pace. Watch the judge. Front legs square, back legs staggered. Lead the calf, and don’t let it lead you. 

It was all to be for naught, of course. 

The dedicated leaders of the 4-H calf club, Hugh Graham and John Thompson, had imparted all the tips and tricks. How to win over even the most stubborn dairy livestock judge. Like the art of clipping a calf to hide any weak points in its build and stature. From a distance, anyway.

On primping and priming for the big show. A little talcum powder here to accentuate the white parts of the legs. A little hair spray along the spine to promote a straight and level back line.

I’d actually witnessed the master at work a couple of nights prior to that year’s Fair. Ross Taylor Parks, one of the best (if not the best) dairy herdsmen around Ontario, had come over to our barn to look at the calf he’d purchased for me back at Hoard’s Station in the winter. She was a classic purebred Holstein, a perfect black-and-white faced beauty with four strong legs, sturdy hindquarters and all the tell-tale signs of a great soon-to-be milk producer. 

Pop had won at the Royal Winter Fair. He exported dairy cows to the United States. Farmers from across Ontario would spend a Sunday driving to Prince Edward County just to look at his herd on a summer afternoon while it pastured along the Front Road. That’s what some locals still call the Loyalist Parkway between Bloomfield and Wellington.

That night, clippers in hand, my grandfather gave Carla a hairdo that would have impressed Michelle Mossey down at John’s Barbershop. 

The rhythmic pumping of the Surge pipeline milking system and the noise from the cow clippers didn’t faze Carla, who stood at attention in the barn for her pre-show coiffure. In the recesses of my mind, I seem to recall Pop acknowledging as much. I was proud. This little life I’d spent months bottle feeding, for whom I had read up on the benefits of Purina Calf Starter over other feed brands, looked every bit the winner. 

At this point there still was no indication whatsoever about the debacle that would transpire in the Picton Fair show ring a couple of days later. There never is.

The big day came. It was hot. Insufferably so.

The intensity of a thousand suns beat down on me at the old open-air show ring.

I was stuffed into a pair of bright white pants that stopped fitting me the previous summer — but the dress code called for such attire even a week past Labour Day.

I was past sweaty and beyond nervous. I led gentle Carla into the ring, squeezing the chain of the show halter in my hand. It slipped through my 11-year-old grip as if it were coated in dish soap. 

And that was just the beginning.

My beloved Carla turned on me at the most critical time. Under the eyebrows of the judge, first she refused to budge an inch coming out of the barn. Then, she took off like a scared cat. Eyes wide. Bucking. Kicking. Braying. Dragging me along for the ride of my life. This gentle animal had grown under my steady care into less of a purebred Holstein dairy calf and more of a beloved pet.

And now she was behaving as if we hadn’t done this routine 1,000 times before. 

Overhead, I’m sure I heard the strains of Aram Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance from the midway providing a soundtrack for this 4H kid getting dragged around the ring. I couldn’t help but notice the judge’s forlorn face while I tried pointlessly to keep Carla from leaping out of order. 

It was child versus wild beast for five terrifying minutes.

Mercifully, the judge was quick with his rankings and rattled off his reasons for picking 1 over 2 and 2 over 3, etc. It was at that point obvious to all. 

My experience with Carla the calf is probably the reason you’re subjected to my writing each week. With the eyes of the County’s agricultural family (and, seemingly, the rest of the free world) on me, my struggles in the show ring that sunny September Saturday morning pushed me off the dairying pathway for good. 

Looking back, I’m sure the onlookers were much more sympathetic than I realized at the time. Ross Parks’s grandson finishing last in the showmanship round stuck with me more than it should have. 

The entire episode, however, has provided me a  lifelong and authentic appreciation of all of Prince Edward County’s 4H clubs. I can’t cover a Twilight Meeting and not think back to Carla and the build up to the Picton Fair.

The same can be stated for all the 4H achievement shows and displays, although I hold my breath and say a silent prayer that each of the children in the ring have a better experience than I.

Leader Selena Prinzen tells me that the 4H Dairy Club has already started preparations for the show season leading up to the Picton Fair Achievement Day. It’s a large club with passionate and dedicated members, each of whom is eyeing a spot on the eight-person Royal Winter Fair team the County sends each fall.

“From selecting calves, to washing and clipping and walking them — this great group of kids has really grown and matured and takes such great initiative when getting ready for the shows. They know what to pack, what hay to feed and when, and how to select the proper halters when it’s show time,” she said.

Mallory, Darcy and Jordyn Wood, Kailyn and Brayden Koopmans, Leah and Callie Nurse, Maria, Paige and Joy Prinzen, Maddie Osborne, and Julianna Wilson are all experienced members who have not only worked on their own calves but are assisting younger siblings, barn mates and new club members to get ready for the Picton Fair and all the other shows along the way to the Royal.

It’s the Gazette’s firm hope that when you check out the Picton Fair this year, you pay special notice to all the youth exhibits. 

Each entry is part of an important step in the walk of life.

No matter who is leading whom.