A Moment with Martha – The State Fair
It’s that wonderful time of year when people from near and far come for the great Minnesota Get-Together, otherwise known as the State Fair! I’ve gone every year my whole life, and it never ceases to make me giddy with excitement. I put on a good pair of sneakers for walking, my loosest pair of pants, fill my pockets with one-dollar bills, and skip breakfast to prepare for the culinary adventure.
The streets are lined with vendors selling concoctions like deep-fried candy bars, which are only created for this magical event. I fall in step aside a sea of people and countless strollers weaving in and out. We march like ants returning to our colony. With noses pointed upward, we catch the waft of freshly made mini-donuts and pronto pups just out of the oil. We shift our gazes to rainbow-colored cotton candy and bright-yellow corn on the cob dipped in a vat of melted butter.
I nibble on a bucket of chocolate chip cookies, storing the leftovers in my purse. I gobble on a turkey leg and finish a hotdog the length of my forearm. I chomp, chew, and relish cream puffs, french fries, and giant dill pickles. I snack on strawberries and cream, egg rolls, barbeque, and hand-cut donuts. It’s more food than I typically eat in a month, but I persevere, knowing this opportunity comes only once a year.
I lose the battle in pacing myself as I take bite after bite of foods that defy gravity. What genius came up with the idea of putting everything from a pork chop to pizza to dumplings on a stick? It’s as if the food choices are based on the diet of a teenager.
I head to the Dairy Barn, waddling slowly side to side with a bulging stomach and indigestion, greeted by a landslide of sundaes, shakes, malts, and flavored milks. It’s there that I encounter the ultimate delicacy—cheese curds. Deep fat-fried hunks of hot, gooey cheese that make you moan. The mere sight of them makes my arteries quiver. I order double, one to eat now and one to put in my purse that has turned into a fifteen-pound doggie bag. Fair food is meant to be revered, like communion wafers, and never thrown out.
I plunk down on a bench to rest and watch this year’s crowned dairy princess get the image of her face carved in butter. What an honor. Who wouldn’t want that keepsake in their freezer? Becoming a butter head is like winning the dairy farm lottery.
I’m too old for the rides at the midway, and my son went to the beer garden and has yet to emerge, so I sit dazed in my food stupor, teetering on the brink of a diabetic coma, exhausted but satisfied. I feel too heavy to move, so I consider asking them to put me in a wheel barrel and roll me out.
I sigh in contentment. It’s been a special day. I close my eyes for just a moment to take it all in.
The next thing I know, my son is tapping me on the shoulder because I’ve dozed off. He says he’s so happy I’ve enjoyed the fair that he’s purchased more tickets to bring me back tomorrow.
Lord, help me.