The surprising epiphany at the National Farm Machinery Show

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

I attended the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Ky. on Feb. 16. This is something I have wanted to do for years, and finally matters aligned in such a way that it could happen.

This show was huge. There were 1,700 exhibitors and it spreads throughout all the buildings on the Kentucky Expo site. As the day went on, the crowd noticeably grew, and this was already the third day of the show. I saw college sweatshirts from Ohio State to out west and the southwest.  

There is a lot of interest in this show. My wheat farmer friend and his wife from north central Kansas drove 800 miles straight through to come to the show, and there were certainly farmers from further away than that. 

After I had spent appropriate time looking at the equipment, I started looking at the crowd. I talked to some of the attendees. I thought back to crowds I have seen at other venues, like professional baseball games.

The differences seemed stark to me. The farm show crowd was dressed in their work clothes. If they had holes in them, they were largely holes acquired by working, not by placed there by designers. There was little makeup or earrings and almost no tattoos. 

That is when it occurred to me. This farm show crowd is working people, often from dawn to dusk, and many times longer than that. They don’t have time to read fashion magazines or scroll fashion websites to see what the latest fashion trends might look like. 

They have little idle time.

This leaves me with an entirely different perspective when it comes to those that might be considered fashionable. They do have idle time. They have time to study what are the latest trends and talk to their friends about them. 

It follows then, that being fashionable may not be an indication of wealth but rather an indication of what you do with your time. I have never looked at it this way before (when it comes to wealth, I am sure there were tractors and combines on the show floor that cost many times what the cost of the houses where the farmers live that own them).

Now, you can say I am being judgmental as I look at my fellow human beings, but to a certain extent we all are. I know many times those who consider themselves fashionable look “down their noses” at those they perceive as being out of fashion.  

The reality is those labeled out of fashion may have more productive things to do with their time than studying what is fashionable.

Yet, there is a lesson here for all of us. We all tend to look at others who don’t look like us, don’t dress like us and adopt a condemning or condescending attitude. Teenagers are especially good at this, but most adults are guilty as well.  

And so, I end with the trope we have all heard, “Don’t judge another person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” Now, I just have a little different slant to the thinking behind this.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.

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