A FAIR State of Mind

Attending the Minnesota State Fair has been a tradition in my life starting as a young kid going with my grandmother. She had the courage (or nerves) to take all five of us grandkids for the whole day.

The night before, grandma would call to ask us what kind of sandwich we wanted her to make. My mom or dad would drive us all out and drop us off at the Machinery Hill entrance where we climbed all over the big tractors and combines.

We always ended up at lunchtime by the All You Can Drink milk stand and if I recall correctly, it was only a nickel back then.  The price has jumped to a dollar but the value is still there!

My husband has apparently never been as pro fair as I, he says due to the hassle of parking and the crowds. Parking should never be a problem with large onsite lots and the abundance of off-site Park and Ride free lots. On my daily drive in from Chanhassen (sigh) I see bold orange signs, weekdays draped with black tarp that make them look like Halloween ghosts, on 212 and 62 directing people to the Park and Rides and you can’t go 6 blocks before running into a sign in the Roseville area.  

Like the ebb and flow of the season in resort towns, you can always tell summer is coming to an end when the fair comes around. It is one that, as a kid, you can’t wait for it to get here BUT you know that summer vacation is coming to an end and school will be starting again.

In Roseville, our hotels are full with fair visitors and the malls are filled with families doing double duty – the fair and back to school shopping.

For the past three years the RVA has awarded a ribbon at the Fine Arts show. Being in the hospitality industry and an all-female office, we usually go for the bright, upbeat, pretty pictures!  When we judged this year, you could immediately tell that the lack of jobs, a down economy and numerous natural disasters are affecting artists in a dark and disturbing way. Walking inside an almost life-size portrait of a young man, with weapons and barbed wire entangling his feet, greets you. Skeletal skulls showed up in an intricate mosaic, an empty apartment stairwell; water stained walls, dirty steps and a yellow helium filled balloon; tied to the worn handrail shrieked of a bright spot in the midst of despair. ‘No copper here’ was written on an abandoned front door, a man’s head was on held down on the chopping block while another held a wicked looking knife over his neck.  

While we could not come to a unanimous decision, and there was the cutest picture of a little girl at a church basement function with older women, we choose a photograph of two young men in a park. They were both well dressed, one in a suit, the other in a shirt and dress pants and it looked like one was showing the other how to tie a tie. We wondered if they were going to a wedding, getting ready for graduation or going to a U.S. citizenship ceremony.

Carrie Donovan, our director of sales, is due to give birth to her first child Sept. 9. She was determined to go to the fair and, since her marathon days have been curtailed, adamant that she and her husband Mike walk the 1.5 miles to the fair, as she always does. So she set out for the fair this past Saturday. She happily walked around for three hours, ate a whole cone, minus the one she gave to Mike, of Sweet Maratha’s chocolate chip cookies, one pronto pup and a pretzel with cheese. She left when the group wanted to head to Machinery Hill and her husband noticed her listing to one side, her eyes glazed over. He was very nervous about her walking back but, in her marathon mind set, she walked all the way home. And no, she did not go into labor…but she did nap the rest of that day.

Our sales manager Shannon planned on going Thursday night and Carrie had only one request of her. That she bring in a bag of mini donuts for her.