SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 – After putting the last of our recent house guests onto the airplane, my wife and I and friend Sue sauntered off for another day at the Minnesota State Fair. Sue is delightfully curious, ensuring that we wouldn’t miss a thing. Given the hordes of other fair-goers, it was hard to miss elbow-to-elbow contact with many of them.
Although I regularly seek solitude, I also enjoy being amongst civilized humanity. In contrast to mobs, Minnesota State Fair crowds are impressively well-behaved. Today, for example, in the midst of a toe-to-heel scene, a young woman touched my elbow and said, “Excuse me sir, but the tag on your sweatshirt collar is hanging out in the back. I thought you’d think it would be strange if I went ahead and fixed it, so I decided to tell you instead.” Call it “Minnesota Nice.”
But what impressed me most was the staggering concentration of “stuff” that fills the fairgrounds: buildings, kiosks, and displays; animals and their elaborate support systems; rides, food, containers, condiments, and beverages; tchotchkes, merchandise, heavy equipment, build-it-yourself house kits, five-in-one tools; bright lights, big flashy signs, booming sound systems; trash containers along each way (remarkably, the vast grounds are nearly litter free). And . . . fair-goers’ clothing.
I looked around at the throngs jamming the sprawling fairgrounds. I couldn’t help but contemplate the elaborate global network required just to clothe that crowd:
Raw materials;
Clothing designs;
Manufacturing processes;
Cellophane and cardboard packaging;
Placement inside shipping containers;
Freighting to port and loading aboard ships;
Transoceanic shipment;
Trucking from seaport to rail terminal, loading and training to warehouse/distribution centers half a continent away;
Delivery to retail outlets where clothing is purchased and worn by . . .
. . . the person who pushed through on my immediate right.
As I stepped to my left to let the person pass, I reminded myself of the intangible network supporting the tangible one: the complex of finance, laws, contracts, hand-offs, and software apps supporting global commerce.
Thanks to the above-described networks and the concentration of humanity at the Minnesota State Fair, I found amusement in the resultant gallery of “sartorial statements.” A few that I encountered:
RISK EVERYTHING (On a guy who looked as though he had little to lose.)
RETRIEVE LOVE
KEEP MINNESOTA PASSIVE/AGGRESSIVE
ELECT A DEMOCRAT IN 2020
CASH
MINNESOTA’S FINEST WHITE TRASH (On a guy fitting a casting director’s definition of white trash.)
I BEAT ANOREXIA (On a very wide guy with an exposed belly.)
WAY UP NORTH (Many T-Shirts bore the more moderate Minnesota norm, “Up North.”)
MINNESORTA NICE
FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN (On an oversized gentleman chomping away on a large ear of grilled, well-buttered, corn-on-the-cob.)
KEEP CALM AND CARRY GUNS
LIVE EVERY DAY AS IF IT WERE EARTH DAY
I’VE SEEN IT ALL, HEARD IT ALL, AND DONE IT ALL. I JUST CAN’T REMEMBER A DAMN THING.
GOD BLESS THE WHOLE WORLD – NO EXCEPTIONS
At the very least, God bless the Minnesota State Fair!
© 2019 Eric Nilsson
