Wish I were there, ma chère, at the fair

The Column: 08.28.26

Aug 28, 2026

I am missing the Minnesota State Fair this week, too busy to fly home and go see it, but I still miss it, the giant swine in the Pig Barn, the magnificent Percherons, the Pronto Pups and deep-fried cheese curds, but I don’t have a small child to carry around on my shoulders and so it would be lacking wonderment and only be for nostalgia and that isn’t reason enough.

I wheeled my little girl around the Fairgrounds when she was two and fed her her first taco. She beheld the chickens with the fancy anklets, the dairy cows, the draft horses. In her stroller, rolling by the 4-H building, she was suddenly engulfed in a high school marching band and the clatter of drums and was thrilled by it. Also by Ye Old Mill and the Skyride. And so I got to relive my own childhood Fair and the blaze of late summer before school begins, the carnival before we settle down at our desks to do our assignments.

I went with her in 2004, she was seven, we were by the Cattle Barn when a crowd led by cops and cameramen headed our way and it was John Kerry the Democratic nominee for president, marching forward, four Secret Service with ball-bearing eyes and their hands holding onto him as he strode down the street reaching out to hands reaching for his and grinning and making friendly talk with whoever wanted to touch him as the ball-bearing eyes focused on those hands, looking for a weapon. I led her away toward the Poultry Barn.

I was eight years old in 1950 when my dad cut me loose, gave me three dollars, and told me to meet him in five hours at the foot of the Grandstand ramp. A skinny kid with glasses, wandering through the throngs of humanity from the Midway and livestock barns to Machinery Hill, race cars roaring around the dirt oval, left hand in my pocket clutching the three bills — what you learn from being on a slim budget is that staring is fun and it is free. I snuck into the Grandstand for the thrill show and saw a man on a horse dive from a tower into a water tank and then stock cars race around the dirt track. I stared at the big banners at the freak show — the Fat Lady, the Sword-Swallower, the Human Pincushion, the Penguin Boy — and enjoyed the barker’s chant, but never went in. Ditto, the Harlem Revue and the two-headed calf. I spent 20 cents on a corn dog and 15 cents on miniature donuts. I watched men pick up the big mallet and try to ding the bell at the high-striker booth. I watched sheep shearing and hog judging. I looked at the dizzy people disembarking from the Tilt-A-Whirl. The dairy princess sitting in a cold glass booth as a woman sculpted her in butter. The pitchman hustling the wondrous utensil that could slice, dice, chop, mince, hash, or cube. Five hours later, I still had a dollar left.

I went to the WCCO booth and watched the most famous man in Minnesota, more famous than the governor, deliver his noontime newscast. Cedric Adams was a columnist for the Minneapolis Star and his gravelly voice was like a member of our family.

When my girl was ten, she and I ate at the sweet corn booth, two ears apiece, went on the River Raft Ride, sitting on a float on a twisting sluiceway of rushing water, which ever since we’ve referred to as the Pee Ride — I took a video with my phone of Maia screaming in delight seeing waves of water splash in her father’s lap. And when she was 19, she saw me do a show at the Fair with Heather Masse and Aoife O’Donovan. She sat in the wings and watched, a distinguished moment for a dad.

I once saw the great Buster Keaton perform at the Fair, doing a slapstick sketch with a stooge holding a horizontal ladder, turning and knocking Buster down, his little porkpie hat went flying, he picked it up, fixed the brim, and the stooge turned and conked him again. That’s my hope, to eventually be a Fair exhibit when I’m 98, maybe in a tent on the Midway, “America’s Oldest Stand-up Comic,” nobody’ll remember who I was but the jokes are still good. Chickens, cheese curds, cattle, carnival rides, comedy, all classics.