These days it seems easy for folks to be judgmental. And being judgmental is usually considered to be a bad thing. And, it can be. But judging can also be a useful thing, and even a fun or humorous thing.

I make that statement from personal experience. During my long years as an ag journalist, public speaker, and humor columnist, I’ve had many opportunities to serve as a judge. I’ll discuss a few of my judging experiences.

My most unusual judging opportunity wuz probably judging the first (and, maybe, only) chicken flying contest in Roosterville, Mo. . This wuz back in the 1970s or 1980s when I had an on-going give-and-take verbal relationship going with Dale Summers, better known as The Afternoon Bozo on WHB country radio station in Kansas City. After one of our on-air conversations, the Bozo asked if I’d be one of the judges of the chicken flying contest in Roosterville, MO. The station wuz doing a remote broadcast from the contest. Without a second thought, I accepted.

Roosterville is an unincorporated community north of Liberty, Mo. When I went to judge the contest, Nevah and I took the kids and made a vacation weekend out of the adventure.

I can’t recall the details of the contest, but I remember it drew a big crowd and had around 60 chickens entered. Let me explain the rules of a chicken flying contest. Only domestic chickens are eligible. The owner of a chicken puts his or her fowl into a mailbox mounted 10-feet high at one end of a long outdoor arena. If the chicken doesn’t fly when the mailbox is open, the owner pushes the chicken out of mailbox with a rubber plumber’s friend.

Volunteers mark when the chicken’s flight lands and measure the flight. The winner is simple. The chicken that flys the longest distance is the winner and gets the prize money.

I can’t recall the winning chicken or its distance, but I do remember we judges had a bit of a controversy. That’s because one entry — and Old English Game Hen — left the mailbox like a hen pheasant and flew out of sight out of the arena. After a brief confab, we judges disqualified the Old English because we couldn’t measure its flight.

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What I’d rate the second most unusual judging experience wuz being a judge at the first annual World Calf-Fry Cooking Competition in Vinita, Okla. The two other judges with me were the Lt. Governor of Oklahoma and a beautiful young Miss Oklahoma. I can’t recall either of their names, but I do remember that Miss Oklahoma wuz a city gal and didn’t really understand that she wuz going to judge for the best-cooked bovine testicles. But, even though she wuz a bit queasy tasting the entries, she wuz a good sport about it and did her job.

In the contest, teams of four cookers entered, just like in a BBQ contest. Team members wore matching outfits and cooked calf-fries according to their own original recipes.

The event wuz great fun. The winner received a handsome carved walnut mantlepiece of a giant bull scrotum. In the queen contest, the winner wuz declared The Belle of the Ball.

Like I said, some of my judging jobs contained an element of humor.

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My other judging jobs down through the years were more down-to-earth. I wuz a judge of a Dairy Princess Contest in Arnett, Okla., on the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated, which certainly put a damper on the mood of that event. Plus, we judges had to disqualify one entrant because she didn’t meet all the criteria for being a dairy princess.

I’ve also judged 4-H Club Share-the-Fun contests and county fair photography exhibits.

I also judged several regional Brittany bird dog field trials in Kansas and Iowa, but I really never felt comfortable judging those contests. Picking the winner was too subjective and not cut-and-dried enuf for my liking.

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I read this week an online article that might be interesting for crop farmers and veggie and flower gardeners, Some researchers at Northern Arizona University believe that playing some kinds of music for plants will help them grow better. They say the plants don’t actually “hear” the music, but “feel” the mechanical energy vibrations from certain sound frequency.

To me, it sounds like another aggie research boondoggle. But, I hope the researchers are right. Who knows, the veggies in my garden might grower faster, taller and be tastier if I play them songs from a playlist of hot licks from The Hag Mighty Merle, the Possum, Tom T. Hall, Porter, Garth and The Judds.

Music surely would be cheaper than fertilizer, especially since I already have a big country music library.

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Ever wonder how Wall Street got named in the New York City financial district? I read that back in the horse and buggy days the rich folks lived on Manhattan Island and pigs roamed the nearby grain fields freely. Pigs didn’t smell any better back in those days, and the rich folks tired of the smell and built a wall to keep the pig from sharing their high lifestyle.

You guessed it. They named the street Wall Street and it serves about the same function today as it did back in the 1800s.

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Also, ever wonder how the term Uncle Sam started? Up until I read this, I didn’t, but here goes. Apparently, during the War of 1812, a pork packer named Uncle Sam Wilson shipped barrels and barrels of pork to troops in the army. The barrels were stamped U.S. Troops. As military joking goes, soon troops started saying U.S. meant Uncle Sam- Eventually, the words got to represent the U.S. government.

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I’ve a coffee sharing friend, ol’ Dub L. Dee, who not long ago brought a fancy, expensive vinyl electric recliner chair. Dub loves his new chair so much that he recently told us, “I’ve finally found my vinyl resting place.”
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Time for words of wisdom for the week: Here’s they are: “Since the election is right ahead of us, there’s a tussle about validating ballots. It seems rather simple to me: Require an ID, citizens only, don’t vote more than once, be alive. And, since by law, every bill of U.S. money must have a serial numbers. Why can’t every ballot have a serial number, too?”

Have a good ‘un.