Temperatures are getting cooler in the evening and early morning now, without a doubt. The fair signals that we can expect this. August is supposed to be one of the three prime months of summer, n'est-ce pas? Doesn't really work out that way.
In theory we're still in summer. Considering the nastiness of last winter, or its sheer length, we can look ahead with some, shall we say, trepidation. I sure am. Maybe it's a sign of my advancing age.
The county fair is like an end-of-summer rite. I'm sure "Diamond Rio" was fantastic last night.
Kudos to the youth hockey foodstand for opening as early as 6:30 a.m. Hope they got enough business to justify it. I remember having breakfast there when the genuine VFW people did the work. There's no replacing that generation of folks. They were up to the challenge of WWII.
The foodstand still has the "VFW" name but it's run by youth hockey. Breakfast for six dollars. It's still possible there. So kudos on that too, in spades. Hold your breath for next year's fair. Consumer prices drift upward. When will we start seeing price resistance?
Breakfast at the hockey foodstand cost me seven bucks because I get a bottle of water too for taking my morning diabetes pill. My health seems fine. I thank the Lord for every day I can say that.
A gentleman working at the foodstand befriended me the other night, noted how he remembered me from my newspaper days. I had quite a full plate of obligations at fair time when I was with the Morris newspaper. Night and day different from my daily life now. I guess that's unfortunate.
This gentleman said to me "you look like you could still be doing it." God bless him. In theory I could be. Life does get complicated. You might say "there's a million stories in the naked city." And by that I mean, there is an underbelly to the day-to-day operations of businesses everywhere. The vanity of human beings, their self-centeredness, their power cravings, their money cravings. The late great broadcaster Ed Schultz said "people get fired from jobs all the time." His broader point seemed to be about the "underbelly" of life.
A lot of uncomfortable and unfortunate things happen behind the scenes with businesses everywhere. We hear about some of this stuff but mostly it is kept under wraps. It just seems untidy, does not speak well for our community or for the human race. We suddenly hear about someone we know having allegedly committed employee theft. Was it really cut-and-dried theft? It's hard to know sometimes.
I remember when a long-time front office employee at the paper was forced to leave most unceremoniously. I can't help but feel bad for the person in retrospect. She is deceased.
Overt "firings" may not happen that often in small businesses but "you know how it is," as sometimes a particular individual doesn't work out. This sometimes just means the individual didn't fit in well enough. Oh, there's lots of gray area.
Celebrities here!
I covered the Stevens County Fair for the Morris paper when our fair got on board with having "big name" musical entertainment. We were following the lead of the Wheaton fair. There was a time when Wheaton had the reputation of the really big fair out here. Certainly Stevens County is prosperous enough that we ought to do just as well. So we brought Donna Fargo here. "Happiest girl in the whole USA," or as the song was parodied "Happiest squirrel in the whole USA."
I remember Ms. Fargo was having some health difficulty at the time. Multiple sclerosis or something similar. She put on a fine show at the grandstand. I could not secure an interview with her. I did better in subsequent years.
In the years before the expansion of casinos in Minnesota, the big names accepted the "fair circuit" better. Stevens County ended up doing fine getting some "big names." I was able to interview Ronnie Milsap on his tour bus. I interviewed T.G. Sheppard on his tour bus. Mr. Sheppard was very personable and engaging, offered me a soda pop too!
I interviewed Charly McClain on her bus. That name has faded. She was well-known at the time. Music careers can be meteoric for girl singers. Charly was closely associated with her "squeeze" who I remember was a soap opera actor. I just looked up his name to refresh myself: Wayne Massey. Charly and Wayne were quite agreeable to talk to and interview.
As soon as I popped onto the bus, Charly remarked about my Boston Red Sox cap!
We had the group "Exile" come to the local fair. I was able to interview a group member. I remember him saying that country music every few years has a "catharsis." I wonder if that's what we're seeing now with the Jason Aldean song. Does Nashville really want to diss all of America's big cities? Sheesh, big cities are where the people are.
I thought "Exile" was an odd choice by our fair. Their biggest hit was edgy for reasons of taste. "I want to kiss you all over?" They actually performed that here. Many people don't pay much attention to the lyrics of songs. If you are a songwriter, you get told that lyrics are very important. Strange.
At the heart of the fair
Most of my time at the Stevens County Fair was devoted to covering 4-H. Couldn't help but be a rich experience. This year as I go to and fro on the fairgrounds, I find there are fewer faces that I recognize. Honestly I miss "the old days" when my lifestyle was so gregarious.
I was with the paper for so many years before electronic communications even came along. What that meant, was that we were all more dependent on print communications. Today we could literally live without print.
The friendly guy at the hockey foodstand pointed out that my work was in press clippings that he had tucked away. So precious to know that people have my old work tucked away. Never to be discarded.
My face is starting to become anonymous. But it's nice to know there will always be a few souls around who remember. Just as I remember all of them.
Sue Dieter may have told the paper staff after I left that "things will be better now." I'm not sure it really turned out that way. But many people have memories of me and me of them. And you can't take that away from me.
I'm not sure what Dieter even did at the paper. But to be around her and to listen to her, you'd think she should be allowed to run every important enterprise around, because she so obviously is smarter than the people currently running them. If she were to read this? She would laugh. Sue doesn't laugh with people, she laughs at them.
Addendum: I reflect on how much the Lee Community Center has meant to the fair, on my companion blog. Here is the link. Thanks and God bless.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - willy73@yahoo.com
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