839: Meet Me at the Fair
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A quick warning - there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. The state of Iowa has a little more than 3 million people. One million come to the state fair. I was throwing past the swine barn and the kids' talent show stage and the lemonade shake up stands, and the many, many corn dog stands and the central Iowa railroad club exhibit building, and the chainsaw art, and the live snakes, and the vast, slowly moving rivers of people. Every one of those million is here on their own personal quest for what they want out of the fair. It's stuff they want to do, stuff they want to see, everybody has their own mission. Declining Killian, for instance, seven and nine years old, brothers from the suburbs of Des Moines, they want to see the giant bull. Killian, the big brother. Back to my co-worker, Diane Wu. Why are you so excited to see the bull? It's one of my favorite animals. How come? They can see red and red is my favorite color. What? You say it's black, like every day. That's a little brother, Declan, with the fact check about Killian's favorite color being black. That the fact check, bulls can't actually see red. The boys wander around the outside of the cattle barn, looking for the red entrance. Super sizable. Bull's name is Teddy Bear, and it weighs three thousand sixty pounds. Signs duct taped onto the pen say, "Do not touch the bull," which is like, "Yeah." "What do you think?" "That's cool." "And big." "I thought it would be smaller." "It would be smaller, okay." "A little bit." You see a giant animal. If you're a kid or an adult, what is there to say? Other than. Yeah, okay. That's about right. Elsewhere. Cowboy Mountain Shooting is one of the fastest growing equestrian sports in the country. It's a timed event where we use two forty-five single-action long-coat pistols. In the cowboy-mounted shooting competition, each competitor is on horseback, and they ride a course shooting burning embers from their guns. They try to pop five balloons with one pistol, then they change guns, shoot five more balloons with the other pistol, and gallop to the finish line all without stopping. "Some of these runs we're going to be doing today are going to be nine seconds, because that's less than a second first shot with a gun change. It's a lot happening all at once." Adam Ross is actually ranked sixth in the world at this sport, but somehow he has never
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