Published August 5, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
County fair season has arrived in northern Minnesota. The St. Louis County Fair wraps up this weekend and the Itasca County Fair, State Fair and others are just around the corner. In rural America, fairs provide one of those calendar landmarks that tell us where we are in the year. How else would we know when to harvest our comically large produce, shampoo our show rabbits or affix our water quality statistics to our tri-fold commercial displays? With fatty foods, spinning rides that expel the fatty food, and cavernous buildings full of quilts, the fair promises something for everyone. Don’t agree? Hey, even elitists find bountiful opportunities for snide comments and smug condescension. Saturday night at the fair is the Super Bowl of Midwestern culture.
I’ll see our county fair through new eyes this year. Our 2-year-old son Henry can just barely see over the tables of the booths. He’s too short for the dangerous, character-building rides. And our other twin sons Doug and George are still in that larvae-like infant stage and thus uninterested in cheeseburgers, ice cream and other diet-busting indulgences. Instead, the appeal of this year’s fair will be simple. Trucks and animals.
See, Henry takes a special interest in anything with wheels or furry legs (four furry legs). He’ll drop what he’s doing to point at trucks, cars, go-carts, lawnmowers and even people in wheelchairs. Usually, he adds the phrase “OOOOOO!” to the pointing. He does the same for animals, complete with moos, neighs and woof-woofs. Why wouldn’t he? Since birth we’ve been reading him stories about trucks and animals. Without thinking about it, we’ve subtly informed him that hippos and bulldozers are VERY IMPORTANT and should be memorized early in life. County fairs, while short on hippos, usually feature plenty of wheeled equipment. I will attempt to hide my shame as my toddler demonstrates how he knows more about skid steers than I do.
Your experience at the county fair has more to do with you and your place in life than it does with the modest annual changes by the local organizers. When you’re a little kid, your fair experience is determined by ice cream and overpriced toys or glow sticks. Did mom and dad say yes? Did the ice cream stay in the cone? As a teen or young adult, the social aspects of the fair take over. Did you meet up with your friends? Did you see attractive people from other towns? Did those people give you their phone number? Was it a real phone number? Then, you’re married with kids. Where are the kids? When did this all get so expensive? Then you’re retired. You remember when the fair was better. You remember when there were more people there and the kids didn’t dress like strippers. You are surprised to learn that Bob survived the summer without air conditioning. You never liked Bob. And the circle is complete.
Some would have us believe that county fairs are on their way out, that they’re merely the vestigial tail of an agrarian society long since evolved into the e-society of today. Perhaps fairs will change, but they’ll always have their place. The fair is the only accurate measure of how much summer, and life, we have left.Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.