“Court Days” in Mt Sterling, KY

There’s a little town east of here that has continued a pioneer tradition over the last 200 years or so – holding annual “Court Days” as a gathering/market place for fall trading before winter sets in. So yesterday we went to Mt Sterling to see what it was all about. Since the ads said “You haven’t lived until you’ve been to Court Days” we were pretty hyped. Hmmmmm.

We’ve long been fans of small town celebrations and goodness knows we enjoy a craft fair as much as the next person. But this one? Not so much.

As we drove in to town we were assaulted every 100 ft. or so by someone hawking parking spaces. All public parking was closed off for the many, many vendor booths, but it seemed like that must have been designed to create an opportunity for local entrepreneurship. And boy did the locals take advantage. We finally found a spot, in someone’s backyard under a tree, and set off on foot to find out what “Court Days” was all about.

We thought it was a craft fair which also was a gun trading expo – and I guess it was. Goodness knows there were tons of people walking around with shotguns and rifles and racks-on-wheels of handguns, hoping for a trade. Little signs, providing the desired price or trade, stuck out of most of the rifle barrels slung over various shoulders. There were tables, next to tables, next to more tables, all along both sides of several narrow streets with hunting rifles laid out and serious looking men standing behind them hoping for business. Mark asked one guy about the paperwork that usually is required for a firearm to change hands and the guy looked at him squarely and said “We got our 2nd Amendments rights. Where are you from, California?” (I think Mark is having serious second thoughts about ever leaving this state!)

Crafts were a bit scarce. But somehow, and improbably, booths selling socks were in great abundance, as were booths of hardware surpluses, sunglasses and a wide variety of camouflage-printed articles of clothing. It was as if people had bought out inventory at “going out of business” sales all across the country and were trying to make their fortunes unloading the excess at “Court Days.”

But what struck us mostly were the food booths, and the conflicting smells they produced. Within one substantial section of real estate, people were barbecuing pork chops, frying corn dogs and onion “blossoms”, squeezing lemonade, sprinkling funnel cakes with powdered sugar, and grilling burgers. There were fancy “circus” style food-vendor trailers, paper-covered folding tables with a church name written on the front and a gas grill in the back, several traditional “roach coach” sorts of rolling kitchens. All those smells mixed in with sautéed onions and peppers and sausages... and kettle corn... “Are you hungry?” Mark kept asking. “No…”

We came home with a t-shirt advertising the locally famous soft drink Ale-8-One and empty stomachs.

Fried dill pickle, anyone?

Some things are just too weird, even for us.