What speaks of summer better than a child strolling through the folksy, farmy delights of the county fair?
Picture a young man, say about six years old. He's wearing a ball cap. His small, tanned round face bears the scratches of summer adventures, some perhaps a little beyond his reach.

Now picture this boy weaving his way though the crowds at a county fair, towing his mother behind him, past the tractors new and old, and past the vendors selling sugar and cinnamon donuts, corn dogs and cotton candy. And of course, it's not just any fair. It's got to be the Leeds-Grenville County Fair, near Crosby, Ontario, host this year to the International Plowing Match — an annual rite of the last days of summer.

Now put a tall plush mascot amid those crowds. Make it a giant ear of corn, and dress it in inexplicable green garb. Imagine the boy's face as his eyes fall on the giant stuffed cob. Imagine the excitement as he hurries his pace, dragging his mom now much more urgently through the crowds, toward what must be, in the eyes of the young lad, a gigantic stuffed toy — just made to be met, not so much a corny mascot as a pile of plush fun.
Put in your mind a picture of this boy's smile as he closes to within hugging distance of the fluffy giant, lets go of his mother's hand to make first contact.

Now imagine the look of disappointment — the crushing sadness the boy must have felt, as he's intercepted by a tall thin man with grey hair wearing glasses, who thrusts himself suddenly, urgently forward to grab the boy's outstretched hand, and shake it.

"Salut," the man says. "I am Stéphane Dion. How are you?" The boy mutters something under his breath, perhaps in French, and watches sadly as the mascot drifts away, and eventually becomes lost in the crowd.

The strange man releases the boy's hand, smoothes his jacket (red, marked "Liberal"), and wishes the boy well. Just then the boy's mother catches up. She too endures the sudden and vigorus nature of the politician's hand shake. As Dion begins to wander away, the mother speaks. She's surprised still by her sudden and unexpected interaction with the leader of the official opposition. She notes the sad eyes her son now wears, and speaks strongly, clearly and certainly for the boy: "He wanted to meet the corn cob guy," she says.

But now it's too late. The mascot is gone. And Dion is gone too, carried away by a crowd of handlers holding notebooks, Blackberries, backpacks and tape recorders. "I wanted to meet the corn cob guy, " the boy says.
Instead, he met Stéphane Dion.