A Day at the Fair

It' s been years since I last visited the Minnesota State Fair. Crowded fairgrounds, relentless shilling by TV news anchors, and the same old exhibits have kept me away. But this time I decided to spend a day and see if anything has changed.


I used one of those park-and-ride stations in the 'burbs to take a bus to the fair, which became more important than ever after the I-35W bridge collapse. At five dollars going both ways, I got unique views of road construction sites, which must have been designed to force people like me to seriously consider using public transportation more often. It's not working.


Upon my arrival at the fairgrounds, I headed out for the animal barns. First to the poultry section, where I saw many resemblances to the AFLAC duck, Little Richard and Foghorn Leghorn, with signs assuring us that the animals are being properly fed and cared for. Moving on to the other animal venues, I found that if you've seen one horse (or cow or hog), you've seen them all.


(Seeing all those animals in their cages made me wonder what it would be like if humans were caged and animals stared at us. Or if humans were taken out of their cages to be judged by a panel of other species for who knows what.)

Moving right along past the smoke and the multitudes after a brief lunch, I made my way through several venues, where you could watch people hawking products in a fashion not seen since before somebody invented the infomercial. Even Minnesota Public Radio, the supposedly not-for-profit institution, was selling All Things Garrison Keillor at its booth.

There was one exhibit in the Food Building (I think it was) where a young woman who had been a Princess Kay of the Milky Way contestant was addressing the audience from inside a 38-degree booth, where she was modeling for a bust made out of butter. It eventually joined the other butter-head princesses, meeting their demise at community corn feeds across the state. Such an honor.

As I mentioned, most of the exhibits I saw have been the same ones used year after year. Here are some that weren't: Memorabilia from deceased rock and country stars such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly in glass cases that could have been easily tipped over if somebody had one too many beers. The Arts & Crafts building had a PG-13 exhibit with the occasional nude tossed in, which I thought was quite daring for the usually conservative State Fair. Just don't let the kids look.

I visited the Newspaper History Museum. Yes, it falls in the category of "same old, same old", but it's always interesting to see how newspapers were printed a century ago. It's also a reminder that newspapers (and press freedoms) are becoming an endangered species in an age of satellite TV and the Internet. But, hey, thanks for the free bookmark.

Local media is all over the place at the fair. By my count, there were 21 radio stations and seven TV stations represented. But I cringe whenever I watch a TV newscast coming from the fair, complete with a studio audience chomping on corn dogs while the anchor tells about the latest Minnesota soldier killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. And doesn't it do wonders for the anchors' credibility when they have to shill for the State Fair instead of honestly reporting on it?

When people think of the State Fair, they usually think of the food. The Foot-Long Hot Dogs.
(Fill-in-the-blank) on a stick. Fried candy bars. Homer Simpson would have the time of his life here. But if you're watching your diet, you shouldn't be here in the first place.

I came away from my day at the fair wondering if anything had really changed there. Unless you count the number of cell phones and digital cameras seen on the grounds, I'd say nothing has changed. The sameness, I'd say, keeps folks coming back year after year. I won't be. Well, maybe in a couple of years.