STATE FAIR

                                                          

I went to the State Fair last week, and I had a great day. The State Fair means many things to many people. It celebrates the end of another summer, and the opportunity to see the many fruits and vegetables, animals and poultry, which keep our larders full of food—something that gets lost in our world of fast food and supermarkets. I came from a rural community and the horses and cows, sheep and goats always bring me back to my roots. But more than that, it’s a time to just get together and socialize with other people, and to listen to their stories.  It’s a chance for those of us from “Up North” to see the other side of life.

I went to a stand to buy some popcorn and I was wearing a cap that says “Up North Minnesota. Crosslake.” The young man who waited on me, asked me, “Do you live up there?” and I said, “I do.” He said, “You must be very happy. I have visited there and I simply loved it.” On the bus, on the way home, I looked at the apartment buildings that line the freeways and the high rises where so many people live out their lives in front of television sets and computers. A place where most forms of entertainment cost money. Where you can hardly see the stars at night in the din of the city lights, and the songs of the birds and the chatter of the small animals are lost to the noise of cars and trucks. A place were the air is heavy with exhaust, and factory pollution, and summer’s sometimes-oppressive heat is absorbed by the asphalt jungle, and then fed back to you slowly, overnight. Yes—I do feel blessed to live up north.

I know if people from some of the urban areas read this, they would say, “it’s not that bad down here and we have amenities, too. One’s that you don’t have up north. We have the Twins and the Vikings and the Mall of America, and we don’t have to drive one hundred and fifty miles to see them.” My daughter and her family lived in Savage, and one day, her husband and I rode the light rail train to a Twins game. We got on at the second stop and the train was already full. At each stop after that, we grudgingly gave up what little space that was left as more people packed in until, if they opened the doors again, someone was going to pop out. My face was in the armpit of a tall man, with bad hygiene, hanging onto an overhead strap. All I could smell and hear was backs, boobs, sweat and crying kids. The trip took over an hour and the return trip home was the same song, second verse. I wouldn’t do that again, even if I were promised a seat in the Twins dugout next to Mauer. I could have come from Crosslake in almost the same amount of time. I have sat in traffic jams, down there, long enough to write this column. The faces of the people, in the cars around you, are expressionless. They can’t wait for Friday.

I lived down there for forty years because there was work for me there. I left a small town to seek my fortune and spent those forty years wishing I was back where I came from. As the naked man explained when caught by the husband, in his wife’s closet, and asked what he was doing there. “Everybody has to be somewhere.” I guess that is true of life itself. I no longer wonder why people live there because it’s for the same reasons I did. I know in their hearts they have the same dream I had. I know because I see them up here all summer long, and yes—they’re smiling.