See
more of the story
Look, it's a great State Fair. It's the best. But are we not a striving people? Do we not want the best to be even better?
"Do I have to do anything?" you ask. No, you don't. "Well, then, sure, make it better. But how?"
It's a good question. Some ideas:
1. Once an hour, the bathrooms are temporarily closed, while a team of experts enter with pressurized tanks of Purell and rose water. The entire place is blasted; a fellow with ninja speed whips fresh cakes into all the urinals, while another uses an enormous vacuum to collect the mound of paper towels that rests atop the bin. They're done in 25 seconds, like the pit crew at a car race.
2. A Lutheran dining hall where a guy named Martin stalks out angrily every morning and nails the menu to the door, and you'd better believe there are 99 items.
3. Actual miracles at the Miracle of Birth center. Now and then, an animal that's not pregnant suddenly lets loose a plaintive bleat and bears a litter of piglets. Even more interesting, they come out of a ewe. A shaft of light beams down from above; seraphim rejoice. Best if it's not advertised, so it comes as a surprise.
4. Comfy cots in the cow barn. The huge fans in that place are the best white noise anywhere, and after two minutes of looking at slumbering bovine hulks, I want a nap. If they could distill the essence of that place, it would drive Ambien off the market.
5. A VIP line at the corn dog stands. No, you think, this is wrong. The whole point of the fair is the egalitarian nature of it. One state, one people, one line! I get it. But I would pay 25 cents extra for a line composed of people who know exactly what they want. It's not hard. You've got your ketchup smear, and you've got your mustard smear. It's not as if this year they have an option for white truffle butter.
6. More plaques. One thing about the fair is how it straddles history and today, the way it never changes but always does. There's so much history there, but not enough reminders.
I can remember when that food stand selling desiccated gator strips was a Lutheran diner, and I'd take a stool and enjoy a cup of fresh, hot, utterly translucent coffee. There should be a plaque. For years there was a Chun King restaurant that had air conditioning set at meat-locker temps. There should be a plaque: "On this spot a lot of people had their sweat-soaked shirts freeze solid in a minute."
There's a food booth whose original purpose was selling a brand of sandwiches best known for appearing in a local gas station chain, as if people were wandering around this gustatory wonderland thinking, "Yeah, it's OK, but I've really got a hankering for a microwaved hamburger in which the meat's 20% particleboard shavings, with a slice of melted cheese-adjacent vinyl." I don't know what they were thinking. It was like a test. You'll eat anything here, and we're going to prove it.
Big failure. There ought to be a plaque.
7. It might seem as if there are lots of benches. And there are. You've seen them, right? They have the names of ordinary folks you never met, memorializing someone who loved the fair. Never missed it. You can imagine them, if you try — some big, rangy Dad, balding; smaller, birdy Mom, beaming in the family photos.
The kids bought the bench and visit it every year. It makes them feel good to see people using it, even if the users don't know about Dad and Mom. They wait until folks move along, then take a picture with everyone sitting on the bench. It's a tradition, the Christmas card photo. Every few years, a new tot joins the crew.
So here's my final suggestion: a Bench for the Unknown Fairgoer. The one who symbolizes all of us, the individuals who join the great perambulating miasma and do the Fair Things we came to do. Perhaps an eternal flame that burns all year long, to remind us that the fair ever flickers in the Minnesota psyche. Uniformed guards, not holding guns but large pointed sticks, who stand at attention with the cheerful grin of the gopher mascot.
Where to put it? Maybe at the top of the grandstand ramp, under a spotlight? No. Put it in a different place every year, and eventually it'll end up at a place that was special to you.
There are a lot of places that stir those first fair memories. First time with your teen peers. First time winning a Midway prize. First date at the fair. First time taking your kid to the fair. None of these places deserves a plaque, because they mean nothing to anyone else, but you know it's special.
We can rule out putting a plaque in the restroom, because the first time regretting taking the Tilt-O-Whirl after eating a bag of curds the size of your head might have been historic, but we needn't memorialize that.
