“Pop Life” from the album Around the World in a Day
Paisley Park/Warner Bros., 1985
A few fellow caddies that I got along with well asked me if I wanted a job at the Minnesota State Fair. I said yes. From 1985 thru 1988 I worked one of the easiest, most fun jobs of my life... selling pre-packaged peanuts from a booth at the Great Minnesota Get Together.
When ActionMan brought it up yesterday, my nostalgia hit hard. I haven’t been to the Fair since 1990.
The first year, I was 15. I met so many people. I worked in the grandstand. There were a couple of dudes in their late 20s who ran a custom t-shirt business. One of them had a huge impact on me when while discussing music, he said that he decided rather than try and keep up, he would just by records from the 50 cent bin. I started doing that too, and discovered some great stuff... Sparks comes to mind.
I got to know all the vendors in that building. It was a cool community, and almost all of them were there the next year. Plus, the people that owned the peanut fair business had 12 other stands around the park, and so I would get to deliver product to them and give them breaks, and so I knew all of those people too and I got to hang out at all the different areas of this huge fair.
For those two weeks, I would stay in the upstairs duplex of my grandparents place in St. Paul. I barely saw them because I would leave at 7am and get home after 10pm. It was so much fun.
My third year, I got a booth by the beer garden. My buddy Matt and I ran it. I had to start my junior year and school started early, so he would work til 3 and then I would come by. Sometimes he would just hang anyway. A lot of action at the beer garden. We would make a cardboard sign that showed the Twins score... this brought the drinkers over and they bought peanuts and listened to the game. I remember there being a particularly dramatic ending to one off a Tom Brunansky homer. The Twins would go on a month or so later to win their first World Series.
1988 was a bummer. The drought that year meant that there was only one peanut stand. The fun was over. So it goes.
When I think of the State Fair, instantly a few songs come to mind. Because there are booths for all of the radio stations, I would hear a lot of the same songs: “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits (after a week of hearing that I realized it was Sting singing “I Want My MTV”), “Dress You Up” by Madonna, which I almost featured here, but then there is this... one of my favorite Prince songs, and one that always reminds me of the State Fair whenever I hear it.
Have fun at the fair, ActionMan. I hope you get some deep fried cheese curds!
