Come to the Fair, Come to the Fair

For the next few days you can feel something different about Cresco. A certain energy, where kids are more hyperactive than normal and adults go “meh, again?” That’s right, until Saturday the Mighty Howard County Fair is back in town.

County fairs are interesting things. They’re much less of a spectacle and have less statewide importance than a state fair, but in their own way they’re arguably more important. Until the fair ends, visitors from all over the county converge on Cresco, and the normally calm town bustles a bit. It’s one of the few times I can honestly say I have trouble finding a parking spot in Cresco.

Before I go on, I should say that my experience with fairs has been kind of mixed. When I was growing up we had the Expo, which turned out to be the shorthand way to say “Oscoda County Fair and Great Lakes Forestry Expo.” At least that’s what I thought it was, until I Googled “Oscoda County Fair and Great Lakes Forestry Expo at the end of the last sentence. Now, it seems that the Oscoda County Fair and the Great Lakes Forestry Expo may be conjoined into one event some years, that they may be separate events other years, and that the Expo may be held at the Oscoda County Park, while the Oscoda County Fair is held at the Oscoda County Fairgrounds, about five miles away or so. I can think of all kinds of reasons for the division, but this has gotten a lot more complicated than I ever dreamed it would be. For now, I’m lumping my memories together as “The Expo.”

The Expo had everything that could hold a kid’s attention. You had huge vehicles the DNR and Forest Service used to fight forest fires, vehicles that by all rights belonged in a G.I. Joe cartoon. You had displays where people would give you stuff for free, cool stuff like lollipops, keychains and ball-point pens. When you’re a kid, it doesn’t take much to excite you. There were all sorts of booths where people sold arts and crafts, and I remember my brother Andy and I being drawn on one particular occasion to a wall where there were—get this—magnets painted to look like Masters of the Universe action figures and characters from Peanuts! This put the ball-point pens to shame. Andy and I begged Mom and Dad to let us buy one, and they eventually did. Andy got a He-Man magnet that showed He-Man striking a heroic pose with his shield and battle axe. I bought Snoopy holding his supper dish in his mouth. Looking back, I have a sneaking suspicion that may have been a character defining moment for both of us.

Regardless, the Expo was a kaleidoscopic blur of events, even later in life when the veneer had finally worn off, along with a lot of the paint and maybe one or two boards. I remember seeing a classmate of Andy’s being one of the main events, which was her basically singing Country-Western using a karaoke track without the benefit of a karaoke screen, which sounds mean but it’s not like you can just round up a band on short notice. Mostly I remember adults wandering around with the “Meh” attitude before anyone came up with “meh’ as a concept. Back in those days you’d usually call it “terminally bored and sick of seeing the same thing for the past ten years but you’re in a rut and it’s something to do and somewhere around the eighth year you just got the feeling you were expected to go there or else you’d be seen as a hermit and antisocial and very likely a communist so I’m here ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?” There were still kids there, and they were still happy. There were also teenagers, mostly just excited that something was going on in the area.

Personally, I’m still in the mindset that the fair can be fun, even if you’re not a teenager. At the very least, it’s interesting. This is why I bravely went to the Mighty Howard County Fair not once, but twice in order to experience it fully in order to write about it. It was a sacrifice, but nothing’s too good for the blog.

First things first—the name. I don’t know where northeast Iowa gets this “mouse that roared” quality from, but I like it. It’s the same kind of verve that made someone in Iowa open up a coffee shop without a Starbucks logo. It’s the kind of spirit that made Leuthold sell trendy, fashionable clothes. Something about this region just makes people say “I can do anything that you can do in a big city and just as well albeit a bit smaller.” It’s why the Koreanna restaurant in Decorah serves sushi and expects it to sell. For that matter, it’s why people buy sushi from Koreanna. 

When you’re a kid, the best thing about a County fair is all the rides. You want to go on every ride at least twice, although you eventually settle for going on one ride and watching the other rides at least twice. This keeps you looking forward to next year when your mom and dad may let you go on another ride. Once you’re an adult, you can go on as many rides as you like. Of course, by then you’ve seen the endless news reports that the local news likes to broadcast during the summer about how fair rides are as unsafe as getting on a plane with a pilot named Alfred Qaida. Even if you’ve never seen one of these reports, which I am convinced the news broadcasts just to screw with its viewers during the summer, you may still become intensely aware that you are placing your well-being in the hands of someone who may or may not have a high school diploma or GED equivalent. I don’t want to discriminate against high-school dropouts, but I remember the kids in high school who ended up dropping out, and I wouldn’t trust them with my socks, much less my life.

So what’s left for the adults? The food! When you become an adult, eating fair food is as big an adventure with going on the fair rides. It’s got a similar chance of killing you, but the reward is fried heaven. The Howard County Fair doesn’t have a whole lot of food on a stick, but like any good Midwest fair it has frying down to a science, not to mention decent brats. I’m personally fond of the smoked giant turkey drumsticks and the ribbon cut potato chips, but just as much I like buying from the local organizations that sell the food. When you have the choice between spending your money in front of a brightly lit trailer that offers everything your little heart, throat and stomach could desire or a simple tent with four or five volunteers frying up brats and meat and selling it on behalf of the 4-H club or the Methodist church, I personally like to see what the locals have to offer. I’ll admit to being emotionally manipulated, but I think the volunteer work makes the food taste better. This did not stop me from getting some mozzarella sticks at one of the brightly-lit trailers, though. Mozzarella sticks can overcome a whole bunch of faults.

On a whim, I decided to strike up a conversation with one of the vendors—the one who supplied me with the Mozzarella sticks. I learned two things. One, it’s hard to keep a vending trailer looking new. This trailer had a few years of use on it, and it showed more inside than outside. Second, the guy running the trailer owned a restaurant in Missouri. He does this because he gets to see the Midwest, although he included Texas in his definition of “Midwest,” and because he gets a little stir crazy when he’s confined to his restaurant for most of the year. The fairs are kind of a godsend to him. It was kind of interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes.

More to come…