I’m a fair nut.
I was a 4-H kid who took projects to the county fair. My first job was working at the Minnesota State Fair. I met my wife, Libby, at that same fair, so it is literally fair to say I’m a fair nut.
It is unusual for us not to go to the fair. There’s seldom a good reason for us to go, and that has never stopped us. Libby—my wife and fair partner—was out of town, so of course I would stay home.
BUT—I was ahead on some of my projects, and the invisible tug of the fair started pulling at me.
I answered the call at 3:30 in the morning. Mike Frost, a buddy of mine, agreed to ride shotgun.
We drove four hours to spend three hours at the fair, then drove four hours home.
Was it worth it?
Absolutely.
There are more stories per square foot at that fair than any other place I know of.
We stopped at the 4-H building. I thought I would see a few ghosts. Instead, I saw a woman who looked so much like an older version of a teenage girl named Dede whom I knew a long time ago that I introduced myself—and found out it was the same girl.
We stepped out into the street and into a group waiting in line—for what?
Amish Donuts.
There were—I’m not exaggerating—about 5,000 people in line to eat a six-dollar donut.
That donut was described as:
“A rite of passage.”
“The best doughnut I’ve ever eaten.”
And “worth the wait.” (Maybe they meant weight.)
There were donut scalpers who were buying trays of $6 donuts and scalping them for $8 to people who didn’t want to wait.
We walked into a commercial building—a three-dimensional, in-person infomercial.
A place where I spent hours as a boy listening to the mystic patter of real-life hucksters. A place where, as a 9-year-old boy, I thought it made obvious sense to buy a vegetable slicer.
“Mom, look! SWISS steel blades!”
We saw old stories—a functioning Linotype printing press cranking out legitimate, printed-on-paper newspapers.
We saw struggling stories—a vegetable-based hot dog stand occupied by bored workers being actively ignored by the 5,000-person donut line.
We sat on memorial benches bearing the names of past fairgoers.
We saw desperate political campaigns asking me to take a lawn sign, even though I don’t live in that state.
We walked through a campus I attended years ago, past the dorm room I used to live in—a building that will soon be torn down.
Memories and stories and wonders and magic and nostalgia.
All packed into a 14-hour day.
It was amazing.
Summer is almost over. What was the best part for you?
