Life on a Stick

My earliest memories of Minneapolis/St. Paul have to do with a family trip taken in October of 1971 or ’72 during the Minnesota Educators Association meetings. My father, an educator, attended meetings; the rest of us hung with my mother and her sister’s family in Cottage Grove. While there, we availed ourselves of (scheduled) opportunities to see the world.  The most vivid was attending Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock” at the Guthrie Theatre. The place was only a few years old, the upholstery was vivid, the place was fabulously mod, I (not even in first grade yet) wore a blue mini dress, white knee socks and black Mary Janes. Sartorial splendor even at a young age.

The original Guthrie Theater

I had just turned twelve the next time I remember being in the Cities. I had won a trip to the Minnesota State Fair based on the merit of either my sewing or a skit that our group prepared.  Besides going to my very first rock concert to see Styx (the freebie grandstand show for all of us 4-Hers) I remember food. Lots of food. Terrific junk food. Pronto pups. Caramel apples. And the Baker’s Square pie stand where I got chocolate French silk pie every day just after breakfast. And sometimes after lunch, too.

Since then, the choice of culinary delights offered at the fair has expanded. In fact, this year there were 56 items offered with a stick delivery system. I don’t have a list of them all, but I do have an abbreviated list of what was on the menu:

Turkey sandwiches, turkey legs, ice cream, ice cream nut rolls, ice cream cones, sno-cones, icees, frozen custard, gelato, floats, milk, milk shakes, malts, sundaes, popcorn, kettle corn, corndogs, corn on the cob, corn fritters, battered potatoes, French fried potatoes, buffalo, buffalo shrimp, buffalo wings, cappuccino, grilled chocolate sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, s’mores, tacos, burritos, candy apples, cotton candy, mini donuts, funnel cakes, shredded pork, jerk pork, pork chops,beer, crab cakes, walleye cakes, Philly cheese steaks, hot dogs, peanut butter hot dogs, pizza, Luigi fries, andouille sausage, potato sausage, chicken sausage, Polish sausage, Italian sausage, bratwurst, fried peppers, fried cheesecake, fried Snickers bars, pretzels, flowering onions, onion rings, lefse, Spam-burgers, deep fried Spam, deep fried Spam curds, deep fried cheese curds, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, elk burgers, chicken fried bacon, Sunnies on a boat, pork chop on a stick, chicken on a stick, walleye on a stick, bacon on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, deep-fried cheesecake on a stick, chocolate covered banana on a stick, mocha on a stick, alligator on a stick, macaroni and cheese on a stick … ad infinitum. (For the record, I did not eat any Spam; I just rejoiced to see it still out there doin' its Spammy stuff.)

My three friends and I were not the only ones indulging in unchecked gluttony. There were 234,380 other people doing it, too.  That number is an attendance record, by the way –  the highest attendance on one day in the history of the fair. In fact, Minnesota boasts the second most highly attended state fair in the U.S. Out of 46 states with state fairs, Minnesota’s 2010 attendance during twelve days was slightly more than 1.7 million. (Texas beats them out by another 1.3 million – three million people attend the Texas State Fair in Dallas.) 

Food is not the only thing that I love about the fair. Every year I attend, I end up down in the horse barns walking the aisles, peering in the stalls at the Thoroughbreds, American Quarter Horses, Arabians, and my favorites, the draft horses. At 6:30 that evening, we attended the horse show and saw some random classes and acts. The first was the trailer race, where team of two people saddle and bridle a horse and make two laps around the arena. The next was an English hunt seat class, which was interesting, but I never have understood why they post. Probably I don’t understand gaits. Finally, Charro Jerry Diaz and his lovely wife Mrs. Jerry put on an exhibition of trick riding and roping. This is the guy that I always saw on posters at one of the restaurants on SW Boulevard in Kansas City – the orange and green place. I think he had been at the American Royal and autographed a poster for these folks. And there he was, at the Minnesota State Fair, standing up on his saddle and jumping over his own rope, making his horse jump over the rope, roping roping roping.

After the horses, one of us had one more hamburger, another of us had one more Polish sausage (so juicy it was like a cherry tomato exploding in my mouth) and the third of us had another turkey sandwich. Then we took our bucket of Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar chocolate chip cookies and went home.

There is so much more to show and tell, but I'll have to share in future postings. How can I not tell more about the Amerikan Svenska Insituten, The Atomic Bombshells (roller derby is back!), unicorns, marching bands, and, and, and.