Kevin Kling's Holiday Inn (17 page)

LABOR DAY  

One summer my friend Ted came to visit from Holland. I met him in Europe while I was performing with a circus, and now he was coming to work as a clown with a local theater troupe. When he arrived, the U.S. government gave him a pamphlet titled “Why Americans Act That Way.” It was full of descriptions of idiosyncrasies and habits Americans have that most other countries do not share. I thought we were pretty much in step with everyone else. Then Ted read aloud some of our “special traits,” and I was surprised to learn some of them were considered eccentric.

“Americans believe change is good.”

I said, “Yeah, of course, change is good.”

“No,” he said, “it’s not. In most of da rest of de world, change could mean a coup, or a flood. No, change is bad.”

I said, “Or it could mean winning the lottery, or finding gold in the sewers.”

“Gold in the sewers?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never gone into the sewers looking for gold?”

“No.”

“Man, you just gave me an idea.”

Ted said, “Let me read anudder one. ‘Americans don’t believe in fate.’”

“Like what, a palm reader?”

“No,” he said. “Fate. Surely you must believe in fate. There is a plan, already in action, and we are playing it out.”

“That’s crazy. We determine the future.”

“No, we don’t. You think you control your future?”

“Of course, or why get up in the morning? How do accomplish anything? Why play sports, if it’s already determined? No wonder you don’t like football.”

“I do like futball.”

“I mean real football, with pads and helmets and cheerleaders.”

“I like our futball, yours is too violent, and the fact we believe in fate does not mean we don’t enchoy seeing it happen. In fact, dere is a comfort in knowing dere is a plan.”

“Not for me. I like it when life is a surprise, one I can control.”

“Finding gold in sewers.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Hey, I know what we …”

“No,” he said.

“No, I have another idea. Come on. We’re going to the State Fair.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is dis Shtate Fair?”

The State Fair. Seriously, you’ll thank me later.

We hop in the car and drive from Minneapolis to St. Paul. It’s right next door, the first city of the East, steeped in tradition like all those eastern cities: Beantown, Philly, the Big Apple (or, as my buddy calls it, “Sondheim and Gomorrah”). We’re brothers, Twin Cities born at different times.

Ted and I arrive at the fairgrounds and it’s a madhouse. Thousands of people from all over the state have come to attend. It’s the end of summer, Labor Day, and we’re all taking a break from work to check out the old favorites and the new foods. There’s a huge traffic jam. “Okay,” I say, “first thing is, we need a place to park.”

Ted says, “Dere’s a parking lot. And it appears to be quite empty.”

“No, Ted, you can’t park in the lot. It just isn’t done.”

“But it is only five dollars.”

“Not doing it, Ted, at the Fair you park on the street. Tradition.”

Ted and I drive around the block in an ever-widening search for a spot. After a half an hour, Ted is agitated, but I know he’ll feel the euphoria of free parking once we find it.

I’m reminded of a story about an Irish guy who is late for a meeting. He’s looking for a parking place, but all the meters are taken. He drives around the block but has no luck. Now he’s really late. Out of frustration, he prays to God, “God, please, please help me find a parking place. Please, Lord, I’ll stop my evil ways, put down the bottle, cease my philandering. Please, God, just help me find a parking spot.” All of a sudden an open space appears. The man says, “Never mind, God, I found one.”

Ted says, “Dat is a Belgian joke.”

“No, it’s not, Ted, it’s Irish.”

“Why Irish?”

“I don’t know, just is. Why Belgian?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, a spot.”

There’s a place. I’m sort of in front of a fire hydrant and blocking a driveway, but it’s not bad. Besides, we’re only about a mile from the Fair. This is incredible luck, I tell Ted.

For some reason he can’t forget that parking lot.

We walk to the main entrance of the fairgrounds. A thirty-foot fiberglass statue of a gopher welcomes everyone, a beautifully rendered representation of our state mascot in a suit and tie: Goldie the Gopher.

Ted says, “Why a gopher?”

“I don’t know. Why not?”

“A gopher, dis is a rodent, vermin. Cows break der legs in der holes. Dey are poisoned, hated by your farmers.”

“We love Goldie. And he’s a thirteen-striped ground squirrel.”

“Why is he called Goldie?”

All of a sudden I realize there’s a lot I don’t know. I’ve never questioned Goldie as our mascot. Huge, powerful, über-gopher with bulging biceps and a buck-toothed grin. What better representative?

As Ted rants about gophers I can see some people looking at him in building anger. This could turn sour. I better defuse the situation.

To calm him down, I say, “You see, Ted, in this country, we believe in change. And yes, there’s even hope for the gopher. That one day he’ll mend his ways and live in harmony with the farmer. This here’s an homage to his resiliency in this effort and his coming over to our ways.” My eyebrows go up and down, informing him there’s more to my argument than my argument.

Ted says, “I see,” but he’s not buying it. Me neither.

We get inside and are met with a sea of “my people” and the smell of cooking grease, the reason they look the way they do. We are a large people. In the old days, we needed our weight to survive. With long fasts, famines, one’s body needed to build reserves. Skinny people died. Now, the famine lasts from breakfast to the coffee break. Not a lot of time to live off the reserves.

Folks are milling about. Many couples share similar themed T-shirts, with sayings like “I’m with Stupid” and an arrow pointing to the side. Some are already drinking from small Pepto-Bismol bottles. Lots of kids in strollers. Junior high kids in mortal terror someone will catch them having a good time with, heaven forbid, their parents. They are biding time to break free into the Midway, where there are more of their kind.

First, Machinery Hill.

My dad used to love going to Machinery Hill. In fact, the first five years I went to the State Fair, I thought that was all there was. The first year I stepped off “the Hill” into the Midway, it was like entering Oz.

I show Ted a plaque that lists the name of farmers whose farms date back a hundred years. Ted says his farm at home goes back to 1066, to William the Conqueror.

I say, “Bet he never had one of these.”

I hop up into a John Deere combine. It’s enormous, with an enclosed cab, stereo system, cup holders. State-of-the-art machinery.

“No,” says Ted. “Dis ting is obscene.”

“Yep,” I say with a huge grin.

My dad would’ve been all over this thing, exclaiming, “Well, I’ll be darned,” or just “I’ll be,” at least a hundred times, getting the back of his shirt all grass stained. That’s how you can tell the farmers at the fair. The backs of their shirts are grass stained from crawling under all the machinery.

I turn to Ted. “How’s about we watch a calf being born, and then grab something to eat?”

On the way to the barns, we pass by the talent tent. There are country time cloggers in calico dancing to “In the Mood,” followed by a quartet of young girls, sisters in taffeta dresses, singing, “Wasting away again in Margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt” and enunciating every syllable to perfection.

To me, this is paradise.

We hit the birthing barn. Like Ted, the little calf isn’t too sure about coming to the Fair. Finally, with one big pull, the little guy is out. The small crowd cheers.

Ted feels some things should be done in private.

We walk back to the food building. It is battered and deep fried.

Ted’s on a roll.

“You call dis beer?”

“You call dis a sausage?”

“You call dis cheese?”

“Come on, Ted.” I try to instruct him. “This kind of beer is designed to quench your thirst after mowing the lawn. It goes down fast, ice cold and smooth. The only reason you guys like warm beer is because of your poor refrigeration.

“And it’s not sausage, it’s a hot dog. Or a footlong. Say sausage to one of these vendors and they’ll stare at you, like you just said, ‘Please stare at me blankly.’

“And these are cheese curds. Fresh cheese. So fresh they should squeak on your teeth when you bite them.”

“We age our cheese to perfection.”

“The perfect age for this cheese is twenty minutes. Get used to it, Ted. Let’s get some roasted corn.”

“Corn? We call dis maize. We feed it to our pigs. I will not eat pig food.”

“Your loss, Ted.”

He did eat the fried cheese curds, though. And thank goodness he didn’t try to convince me that cheese came from Europe. He’d already tried to tell me the fiddle and guitar came from there. I don’t know what their schools teach them, but I’m glad he’s here, where he can learn. I think it would be good for more Europeans to travel. Learn what the world is really like.

Now it’s time for “All the milk you can drink for a quarter.” Ted says, “Milk is what we give the children.”

“Come on, Ted, nothing cuts the grease like a cold paper cup or ten of milk.” I start in drinking. Meanwhile Ted goes into the dairy building and watches a woman sculpt one of the Dairy Princesses out of a huge block of butter. The Princess and the sculptor wear coats and are stationed in a refrigerated glass booth. I stand at the milk counter ’til I feel I’ve drunk my money’s worth.

When I find Ted he’s still staring at the booth like it’s an alien from
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
.

“Come on, Ted. Now the fun begins. We’re going to the Midway.”

“Midway?”

“Rides.”

“Dere is a ride.” Ted points to a building with small boats running into a channel and a large wheel churning in the water.

“No, Ted, that’s Ye Olde Mill.”

“It looks gentle.”

“It is. It’s a boat ride that goes through dark tunnels. Every once in a while a very … uh, unique diorama will appear. One has plaster deer and raccoon statues, another has gnomes making shoes. One has outer space people and Knights of the Round Table.”

“Sounds good.”

I explain to Ted in a whisper. “Okay, Ted. We are a people that are slow to boil. But I figure back somewhere in our distant past, maybe through Viking raids, we acquired a recessive Latin gene, an unexplained phenomenon that has made us prone to sudden and unexpected acts of passion. You never know when this recessive gene will flare up. This ride is here just in case, while you’re at the Fair with your date, that Latin gene kicks in. You can take a quick cruise and reset the levels in private.”

Ted is staring at me like I am in the Butter Princess booth, with a mixture of belief and disbelief. Finally Ted says he doesn’t even want to imagine this crowd “resetting their levels,” so we take a pass on Ye Olde Mill.

We enter the Midway, stepping over huge electric cables running to rides. Junior high kids run free of parents. It reminds me of where Pinocchio ends up just before turning into a donkey.

Ted wants to go on the Ferris wheel, but I say, “No, that’s for wimps,” and talk him into a ride that will be forever known as “the return of the corndog.”

After apologies all around, we walk past the blue whale truck. A loudspeaker blares, “If it isn’t real, you can keep the truck.”

I told Ted, don’t even think about it. “I‘ve wasted a lot of money in there. They won’t give you the truck.”

We continue along the rows of rides and games. Barkers try to get our attention.

Ted stops. “What is dis?”

“It’s an old-time freak show.”

A man stands out front of the tent. “See the amazing Popeye, the Sword Swallower, and Ape Lady, found in the wilds of the Amazon, descended from the lost species,
Orangutangus maximus,
the missing link.”

Ted says, “I would like to see dis missing link.”

“Are you sure, Ted?”

“Yes. It is important.”

“All right.” I mean, it’s the first thing he’s wanted to do.

We go into the tent. The sword swallower looks like swords were the only thing he has ever swallowed. Gaunt, thin, white as a sheet, but he manages to slide down some impressive hardware.

“Come on,” says Ted.

We go to the next tent. “Popeye.” A man who can pop his eyes out of his head. I remember a lot of kids from junior high who ended up in the nurse’s office because of this guy.

Popeye enters, and Ted says, “It’s de same guy. Dat’s de sword swallower.”

It was. Same guy, now in a turban and cape.

Shhhh, somebody says.

We go into the next tent. “Gorilla Lady,” a woman who turns into a gorilla. Ted says it better not be the sword swallower. It isn’t. A woman enters: dark hair, bikini with gold tassels, a stare that certainly once held mystery. A bright light hit us in the eyes, and there’s a deafening roar. Before we can refocus, an ape stands before us, about the same height as the sword swallower, the thinnest ape I’ve ever seen.