Even though the cavernous 4 -H dorm was never completely dark, the lights were out at nine. I could hear the big click of the light switch from my bunk on the far side of the room. I had a lower bunk because I was never one of those guys who could climb straight up the hemp rope in gym class and I hated top bunks. There was significant rustling from the hundred or so boys as they settled into the spring of beds and the talking quieted down too but the counselors should have known what was coming next. A big hush, a couple slurred, cackled grunts that could have served as commands.

While the sleeping arrangements were chaotic, based upon first come, first assigned, the loyalties divided naturally between clubs from the north of the county verses clubs from the south, or west out Otisville way. In our county, Middletown actually is a town in the middle and populations on either side of the city were foreign to each other. (The east of the county, the Hudson River side, the Newburgh side, had long lost any claim to the dairy industry.)

I was not a willing participant in the Beanie Ball Wars. Other than being an armaments supplier, I tried to be invisible. My morning chore of sweeping the floor of the dorm yielded a number of the hard rubber balls and I gave my cache to Johnnie R, who had an arm like Whitey Ford. The dorm, dark, but in a simmering visibility of imagined petty hostilities, exploded into an unrehearsed but seemingly synchronized battlefield of wild attack. Big farm kids, much bigger than me, ran nearly naked, dressed only in their boxer shorts, down the rows of bunk beds, hammering their predetermined or spontaneously perceived enemies with the hard rubber Beanie Balls, landing like welts themselves on the exposed victims.

Me, I was well protected.

For my tenth birthday, my Uncle Leo had given me a USMC sleeping bag right from the Korean War. It was Marine Corps World War Two green and stuffed with duck down. The Korean War had trained the American soldier to be prepared for bitter cold and the sleeping bag was good for 20 below zero. The large zipper was the best in the world, and even had a quick release so you could get out of your bag before being bayonetted. The down bag itself came with a removable outer shell made from new inventions from the early ‘50’s, from the research of the nescient American chemical world destined to go on to pollute just about everything, which, put together, wove into a lightweight fabric, waterproof and easy to clean -- all in one. I was trained in the proper care of the bag by my uncle, the Major, how to keep it clean and how to roll it into a tight, protected bedroll that might save your life one day. It was saving my life right now, as the lanky farm boys ran quietly, swooshingly, down the rows of bunk beds, firing their Beanie balls. Those hitting me bounced off the outer shell of my Marine Corps sleeping bag like they were popcorn and either rolled under me on the spring-held mattress, or ricocheted onto the wooden floor where I could hear them rolling across the plywood to a stopping point where I might find them in the morning. I memorized the traces of the rolling sound.

Aside from the thudding of the rubber balls, I could hear whimpering, and crying, and surprise, amid grunts of satisfied conquest.

The counselors were finally on to it. The shouting began and then I could hear the clank of the light switch and the lights came back on in the big high-ceiling room and it was as if nothing had happened. A quick shuffling like rats in the walls and everyone was back in their respective bunk beds. It was impossible to know who had started it, or finished it, and a thorough inspection was made. Anonymity ensured no punishment was administered and all lips were sealed.

Near the end of our week at the fair, all the Beanie Balls were collected and set aside and returned by the staff to Beanie’s Bingo down on the lower end of the Midway concourse. 4-H kids were still banned from playing at the lucrative attraction.

All the cattle judging was done and the end came quickly and maybe you had one last chance to sit next to that girl you were so attracted to for reasons you were pretty clear about, sitting together on one of the last bales of straw or hay in front of the heifers in the long pole barns. And maybe she let you touch her now that everything was over, touch her anywhere, even on her thin, muscular arms with the summer bleached blonde hairs, it didn’t matter.

And then, that was it. The cattle trucks came and the cows were loaded and the barns emptied out and a few remained and the sun was late afternoon and I was one of the last to load and the buildings seemed forlorn and even cruel and I felt like I was late for something and then I was home and in a couple weeks school would start and the importance of the fair would fade away and the girl would fade away, but maybe you would see her at the state fair because you did have that blue ribbon and she did too.