I've had about as many corn dogs, bratwurst, pulled pork sandwiches and beans as a man can handle.

I'm looking for just a plain pot roast with potatoes and carrots to balance out my recently unbalanced fair eating habits.

The fair had more animals this year than it has had in the past.

Small county fairs and even some larger fairs have been having trouble lately attracting the crowds they used to attract.

Farmers are few in some parts of the country and kids who have been brought up on TV and video games don't seem to appreciate the finer points of a porker like I did in my younger days.

Speaking of pigs, the fair brought back a favorite pig memory of mine. It must have been that Duroc that snorted at me as I walked by its pen last week.

We raised hogs on our small Iowa farm, years ago. Usually they were Hampshires, Chester Whites, Poland Chinas or some variety thereof. We really didn't care what breed they were as long as they ate their daily ration of "slop" and grew up at a good rate.

One year my Dad decided to upgrade the hog herd a bit and he found an ad in the paper featuring a registered Poland China boar pig. We traveled some distance away from our home and found a fine looking boar pig staring at us through the wood fence on the farmer's yard. The deal was made and I remember the seller guaranteeing this pig to produce lots of piglets.

The pig was almost smiling as we chased him into our waiting pick-up. I thought he knew what he was heading for, namely a batch of sows looking for a boyfriend. What could be better than that?

Well, to make a long story short, we unloaded the fine-looking specimen, he trotted into the hog pen, took one look at all those friendly sows and promptly took off over the hill with all the sows in a chase mode. Not one sow was bred as a result and we dutifully hauled the pig back to its owner and collected our money-back guarantee.

Since we still needed a boar pig, we knew my uncle had such a critter on his farm and after a phone call we found out we could borrow this rusty-colored Duroc.

I couldn't believe my eyes when we arrived to pick up the pig. He was enormous! At least 5 feet long and he had a head the size of a bushel basket.

His enormous ears hung over his eyes to the point that the pig had to tilt his head backward just to see. He looked like what we were looking for. We arrived at our loading chute, opened the end gate of the pick-up and the huge pig strode down the ramp and into the barn of waiting sows.

He took one look at the bunch of porker, gave out a huge "woof," the sows made a bee-line for the barn door and the chase was on. All the sows were bred within a week.

This boy knew what he was doing. When I walked by that little Duroc the other night at the fair, I remembered that mammoth old boar pig and I smiled just like he did when he spied that bunch of sows in the barn.

Dreams do come true, even a pig's dreams.

See you next time. Okay?