Fear and Loathing at the Farm Show
A Journey to the Heart of the American Farm Dream
A gonzo journey through Big Iron 2024, with respectful nods to Hunter S. Thompson's spirit of capturing the weird and wonderful truth beneath the surface.
We were somewhere on the edge of Fargo when the Miller Lite began to take hold.
Halfway through his third blue-collar elixir, Dwight said something like, "I'm feeling a bit lightheaded; maybe we should find some mini donuts."
Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the parking lot was full of what looked like huge pickup trucks, all swooping and screeching and diving around us as we made our way to the food court.
Canadian wildfire smoke hung over West Fargo Fairgrounds, raising the alert for the asthmatic—but not thick enough to stop the Midwest champagne.
Big Iron is a forty-year farm show tradition, where every September, farmers, ag broadcasters, and truckloads of Wisconsin smoothies descend on the West Fargo Fairgrounds to swap stories, knock back a few too many, and fantasize about hauling home the latest farm machinery.
When I was 15 or 16, my old man pulled me out of school to attend Big Iron—because around here, farm machinery and free stress ball giveaways sometimes take precedence over education.
The morning at Peterson Farm Seed had been nothing short of agricultural enlightenment.
Clean test plots stretched to the horizon like some scientist's zen garden.
Actual PhDs wandered the grounds, casually dropping terms like "genetic markers" and "yield optimization" while we tried to look like we belonged among the legitimate farmers.
The real shock came when John - a man whose usual response to agricultural meetings is to develop a sudden and severe case of spontaneous combustion - pulled out a notebook. This is the same man who once faked a medical emergency to escape a wheat grower’s meeting, claiming he was allergic to PowerPoint presentations about straw strength and protein content.
But there he was, taking actual notes. On paper. With a pen. Not a single sketch of an explosion or an emergency exit.
Not even a doodle.
When John asked a philosophical question about soil composition variables in their test plots, I genuinely considered checking him for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" style pods.
"These yield results are actually pretty impressive," he'd said, studying a chart with the intensity he usually reserves for reading beer labels.
"And look at their replicated trial methodology." The words floated from his mouth like the ghost of Norman Borlaug had possessed him.
The whole morning was like that—pristine research facilities, immaculate grounds, and professionals in pressed polo shirts discussing genetics with the kind of precision you'd expect from NASA engineers.
Even Sheri Oteri, attending her first farm event, seemed impressed by its sheer legitimacy.
“This is precisely what I expected agricultural research to look like," she said, not yet knowing that by afternoon, she'd be documenting the mating rituals of beer garden equipment traders.
From where I stood, it was clear Dwight hadn’t been in public for a while, and five weeks of tractor time had scrambled his social protocols. It wasn’t until his third or fourth Miller Lite tallboy that he started making sense.
Just as he enlightened us about this new pulled-pork chili recipe that turned his bathroom into a biohazard, three guys from Channel Seed strutted past, their cologne so thick it nearly knocked me flat. The one on the left with the frost-tipped goatee had a ketchup stain trailing from his neatly tucked polo right past the beltline of his perfectly pressed khakis.
And the crazy bastard in the middle? He wouldn’t stop spritzing himself from one of those perfume bottles with the bubble squeezer—like he’d been born in a department store.
Trying to mask the smell of crusted ketchup, maybe?
“As your attorney,” Dwight smirked, catching my eye. “I must inform you that their cologne is actually mind-control chemicals funded by Big Soybean.’
Cripes, this kid. Can’t take him anywhere.
Carl Cash, an old farmer I’ve known since I was in diapers, chimed in on the perfume parade, saying it smelled an awful lot like Northern Exposure—one of North Dakota’s only gentleman’s clubs and the go-to spot for degenerates extending the Big Iron party well into the night.
Carl insisted we make our way there, post haste.
“Hold on, big boy,” I said, rattling an empty tallboy on one of the wooden spools scattered around as makeshift tabletops.
“We’ve still got a lot to do today. I’ve got to swing by the Peterson Farms tent to meet the rep and finalize our new business deal. I still have to return these hearing aids in my pocket to another seed rep who forgot them in our office, and, most importantly, John’s got to hit Duluth Trading to pick up some new underwear.
Plus, he mentioned a quick stop to see his woman for a little bit of the old ‘how’s your father?’ before we head back.
Just then, the Mustang Seeds gang thundered past, chanting something about building ‘lasting relationships, not transactional ones.’ Their red steeds kicked up dust that clung to the smoky air like cosmic soup.
With each lap, their corporate speak grew more mechanical, more precise.
‘INITIATING FOURTH QUARTER SYNERGISTIC RELATIONSHIP CULTIVATION PROTOCOLS!’
It was barely noon, and somehow, they’d already morphed into corporate robots.
How did they get so mechanical, so fast?
These guys were evolving quicker than Ai with a perfect prompt.
Maybe they’d figured it all out after all these years.
Or maybe, just maybe, the Mustang gang wasn’t real at all—just plants from the Pioneer seed team meant to keep us from the real story: the Z-series soybean line.
Dwight burst through the crowd, a makeshift helmet of crumpled Pioneer sales brochures rubber-banded to his head.
“As your attorney, I’ve uncovered something sinister. The Z series isn’t just soybeans—it’s a gateway crop designed to make us dependent on their proprietary soil matrices!”
Sheri clutched her Peterson Farms tote bag like a shield, watching as Carl argued with a cardboard cutout of a Pioneer rep about fertilizer rates.
“Listen here, Jeff,” Carl slurred at the cutout’s frozen smile, “After we’re done, you and I are hitting Northern Exposure. Those girls know more about spreading techniques than any seed dealer I’ve met.”
Behind us, two farmers who could barely stand were somehow finalizing a $400,000 combine purchase. Their signatures looked more like seismograph readings than names, one of them handing over a check while debating whether fish could feel pain.
“I thought this was supposed to be about tractors,” Sheri whispered, ducking as another empty tallboy sailed past her toward the recycling bin.
“Welcome to ag commerce,” I said, just as the Mustang gang thundered by again, their chants growing more corporate with every lap.
The sun was setting somewhere behind the wildfire haze when we finally decided to make our escape. The hearing aids still burned in my pocket, their delivery mission now just another casualty of Big Iron's beer garden tractor beam.
Sucks you right in.
John, still sober and increasingly anxious about his underwear situation, had started doing that thing where he obsessively checks his watch while muttering about Duluth Trading's closing time. The man who'd shown such promise that morning at Peterson Farm Seed was now reduced to planning the fastest route to fresh boxer shorts.
"We need to move," he insisted, dodging a flying Pioneer hat that had been converted into what Dwight called 'an anti-surveillance device.'
"If we don't leave now, I'll have to free-ball it all the way back to Grand Forks."
Carl, who had progressed from arguing with the cardboard Pioneer rep to attempting to sell him a tractor, looked up from his negotiations long enough to make one final plea for Northern Exposure.
"The girls there understand agriculture better than half these seed reps," he insisted, straightening the cardboard Jeff's collar.
"Plus, they've got better PowerPoints."
Getting out of Big Iron is never as simple as just leaving.
The beer garden has its own gravitational pull, a force field of Milwaukee's finest that seems to bend both space and time.
Every attempt at departure gets interrupted by someone you haven't seen since last year's show, each carrying a fresh round of tall boys and a story that can't wait.
The Yaworski clan intercepted us near the exit, their accents now so thick they needed subtitles. They'd switched from Bud Light to something stronger, possibly paint thinner, and insisted we stay for "just one more."
Meanwhile, Dwight had climbed atop the Legend Seeds display trailer, wearing what appeared to be a tin foil hat made entirely of Beck's Hybrids promotional materials.
"The truth is up here!" he shouted, waving a handful of soil sample reports like classified documents. "The Z series is just the beginning! Wait till you hear about their weather modification program!"
Sheri, who'd spent the day documenting what she called "the devolution of agricultural commerce," had finally given up trying to maintain any pretense of professional observation.
"So this is how the food supply chain actually works," she mused, watching two men trade a sprayer for what they thought was a ham sandwich but was actually just another Beck's hat.
The Mustang gang made their final pass, their chants now reaching peak corporate enlightenment:
"LEVERAGING SYNERGISTIC CROSS-PLATFORM RELATIONSHIP MATRICES FOR OPTIMAL CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SCENARIOS!"
John finally snapped. "That's it. I'm leaving. With or without new underwear."
As we made our way to the parking lot, the hearing aids still undelivered in my pocket, I couldn't help but think we'd witnessed something profound.
Big Iron isn't just a farm show - it's a spiritual experience, a place where agricultural commerce meets Miller Lite mysticism, where deals are sealed with handshakes and ham sandwiches, and where somewhere, beneath all the chaos and beer garden philosophy, actual farming business occasionally gets done.
We piled into the truck, Dwight immediately passing out in the passenger seat, his tinfoil hat now serving as a makeshift pillow. His last conscious words were a ramble about Pioneer’s new corn genetics and their hidden messages from the agricultural Illuminati.
In the driver’s seat, John looked defeated, his fresh underwear and quickie prospects bleak. He just wanted to get home—a man worn down by sobriety and the day’s strange events.
Still clutching her Peterson Farms tote, Sheri leafed through three notebooks filled with observations about “the anthropological significance of beer garden equipment trading rituals.”
The smoke from Canadian wildfires had turned the sunset into a surreal, glowing orange orb, like some cosmic Miller Lite can hanging in the sky. As we pulled away from the fairgrounds, the Mustang gang’s corporate mantras echoed faintly across the prairie.
“Did we even look at any equipment?” Sheri asked.
“The equipment,” I said, “was the least important part of Big Iron. Always has been. Thought I mentioned it on the way here.”
As we merged onto I-94, the last echoes of Big Iron fading behind us, I felt the weight of Sheri’s eye-roll, and the hearing aids in my pocket.
Maybe Dwight was right—perhaps they were CIA listening devices. Or maybe they were merely hearing aids, another piece of unfinished business in the grand circus of agricultural commerce.
Against all odds, John made it to Duluth Trading before closing—fresh bloomers secured, but the quickie would have to wait.
Home was calling.
Meanwhile, Sheri had gone from agricultural anthropologist to Northern Exposure aspirant, convinced by Carl’s endless testimonials that it was essential to Big Iron's cultural experience. Her field notes had evolved from “Subject traded combine for ham sandwich” to “Perhaps Northern Exposure holds deeper agricultural significance?”
But John, his fresh underpants snug and his dog waiting at home was immune to our urges for continued debauchery. I slumped in the pickup, watching my dreams of legendary Big Iron afterparties dissolve like wildfire smoke in the night.
Dwight achieved a state of consciousness previously unknown to science, muttering cryptic warnings about “the great taco delusion” between bouts of what smelled like unauthorized chemical warfare experiments.
“The Z-series…” he mumbled, his emissions so potent they bent the light.
Even Sheri’s makeup began to run—not from tears, but from the sheer toxic assault. I’m pretty sure the hearing aids in my pocket started corroding.
When we got home, Dwight fled the pickup and earnestly explained conspiracy defense techniques to my bewildered neighbor. His tinfoil hat, now askew, picked up what he claimed were “suspicious satellite signals about soybean futures.”
Sheri retreated to the backyard to meditate on the day’s revelations or reconsider our entire relationship. I ordered pizza and watched the Miller Lite fog lift for what turned out to be the last time—but that’s another story entirely.
Ultimately, all we had to show for our Big Iron adventure were John’s seven-day supply of drawers, three increasingly delirious “agricultural anthropology” notebooks, and whatever government secrets those hearing aids had collected.
Some say Carl is still out there, pitching strip joints to cardboard cutouts. On quiet nights and with the right set of ears, you can almost hear him making his case.
Strange memories of Big Iron 2024.
We found our truth in that smoky beer garden—sometimes, the real equipment show is the friends and business associates we disappoint along the way.
It feels like a dream now… five weeks of harvest isolation followed by a savage journey through the upper Midwest’s wildest gathering.
But in truth, we were the savages.
There we stood in the heart of North Dakota’s largest ag show, chasing the American Farm Dream, only to find our truth somewhere between Peterson’s pristine test plots and Carl’s cardboard courtship.
Looking back, I see the high water mark—when the wave of agricultural professionalism finally broke and rolled back.
Maybe it was when John took those notes at Peterson or perhaps when Dwight first donned his tin-foil hat of Beck's brochures. You could see it in the way the Mustang Gang's chants evolved, in how easily we traded real equipment for imaginary sandwiches.
We are probably the last generation to remember Big Iron before it became fully corporate, before beer garden wisdom was replaced by PowerPoint presentations, and before deals stopped being sealed with handshakes and started requiring DocuSign.
There was madness in any direction, at any hour.
You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of corporate ag. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail.
We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
Now, less than three months later, you can go into any farm show in America and hear AI-generated sales pitches about precision agriculture and digital solutions. But when you look back at Big Iron, you can see the point where the wave finally broke and rolled back, leaving behind empty Miller Lite cans, undelivered hearing aids, and the ghost of Carl Cash, still trying to convince a cardboard cutout to join him at a gentlemen’s club.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
Just make damn sure someone else is driving—because in a world of corporate sales pitches and digital precision, it’s moments like Big Iron that remind us where the real action is.
Hat off to you sir. This is top notch stuff. I’ve tried my hand on a few stories and thought they were alright. Not anymore!
Beautiful story telling. Looking forward to reading more.
I loved this. Keep 'em coming.