The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Between the start of school and the Columbia County Fair, it's been a very busy week. Talk about an embarrass- ment of riches - the events of the past seven days could constitute a whole month's worth of columns. Here's a highly condensed version of events:

School started on Tues- day the 3rd. I was pretty excited - visibly so, in fact, to the point where someone passing me on the sidewalk remarked that I was "too happy to be at **** school." (This had little to no effect on my mood.)

My first-period class is Economics. Second period is Life Management Skills, which is required for all juniors. Third period is English III, fourth is AP US History, fifth is Algebra II (there are two Algebra II classes this year, and there are only four people in mine, so it's actually quiet enough to concentrate). Sixth period is Spanish. School's been fine so far. I would be more gushing in my praise had I not needed to miss a day-and-a-half for fair court duties. At the mo- ment, it is 8:05 on Sunday night and I still have an hour of catch-up notes looming in my future. That's entirely my fault - it was my choice to be on the court, after all - but it's incredibly difficult to be perky about one's academic life whilst one's two-ton AP US History textbook, still open to the first page, looms on the fringe of one's vision.

(Hold on a moment - there, now the book's shut and stuffed under the chair. Now, where was I?)

Oh yeah - the fair!

On Friday, I stood by the entry gate to the Columbia County Fairgrounds greeting visitors to the fair. One of them was a tall, older gentle- man in a Department of Ag- riculture jacket who carried a brown briefcase.

I said 'hi'. He said 'hi' back.

Later, I found out that that man had been a Washington State Fairs commissioner. What's more, he had been very impressed. I heard third-or-fourth-hand that he thought Columbia County was "the nicest fair (he'd) been to all year". In any case, he gave us a black and white "Special Award" ribbon, which hung from an antique refrigerator in the pavilion all weekend.

I entered a beaded bracelet in the fair. It didn't win anything but a blue pre- mium, but I'm proud of it anyway. It's my third bead- ing project, and the first one created with the help of actual instructions.

My little brother entered two leaves of alfalfa. Walk- ing into the pavilion, I saw one of them- it was in the front display, bedecked with a blue premium and no less than two rosettes.

Later that day, I was walk- ing around with him and a friend of his. We walked into the pavilion. Chris, who thought he knew where the alfalfa was, headed straight to the crop-and-forage display. There, he found one of his cuttings, with a single premium ribbon.

"Ah well," he said. "Hey, let's go look at the wood- work display."

"Oh my," I said in uncon- vincing fake surprise, "wher- ever could your other cutting be? Quick, come this way, where a mysterious sixth sense beckons mehellip;"