As I have said before, Mike Brown is one of my favorite journalists in America. He is the editor of the Rockdale Reporter, in Texas. He has held that position for 20 years. He has been working at the Reporter for a total of 44. It so happens that the Rockdale Fair — formally speaking, the Rockdale Fair and Rodeo — has been going for 43. Mike has covered every single one of them.
He shared a picture with me, and I asked whether I could share it with you. It ought to win a prize. Maybe it has (Mike and the Reporter have won a lot of prizes). He sent it in response to my journal of the New York State Fair, in which I have a complement of photos.
But none as good as the above. Mike snapped it in 2014, and it shows the rabbit-judging at the Rockdale Fair. The whole thing says “America” to me. Norman Rockwell would blush.
P.S. Mike Brown has been reading National Review — and a range of other periodicals, surely — since he entered the University of Texas in “the apocalyptic year of 1968,” as he says.
P.P.S. If you’re starved for podcasts, I have a new Jaywalking, titled “My Kingdom for a Grubstake.” There’s more talk than music in this one — but it ends with some Leo Ornstein, played by the pianist Janice Weber, a friend of mine (though this should not tarnish her reputation).