State Fair, Iowa Style
We went back to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines this past Friday to see if things had changed much since we had last been there. Considering the last time we were there was back in 1979 or ’80, you might think things would look a whole lot different.
And they likely did — except, of course, that we could remember very little about the last time we had attended this Greatest of All State Fairs. (And if you doubt its status, consider that it’s been around since 1854 and was, indeed, the inspiration for the book and movie “State Fair.” More than 1 million people attend the Iowa fair each year — not bad, in a state of 3 million. And every presidential candidate knows that an appearance at this fair is mandatory in election years — no exceptions.)
All we can remember about those long-ago visits is that we had seen Bob Hope and Red Skelton perform, separately, at the fair back then. We have photos to prove it. We also remember the incredible thunderstorm we encountered when we drove back home to Ames after Mr. Hope’s fair appearance that night. Being from almost-thunder-free California, this lightning-booming-downpour extravaganza was truly frightening — so much so that we wrote a story about our experience and submitted it to the Ames Tribune. It was printed on the front page.
Our visit this year figured to be a bit calmer. For starters, no storms were in the forecast. We also were going during the daytime and planned to drive back before dark. And we went with our friends Steve and Beth, who surely knew their way around the fairgrounds.
We had done our homework and knew where we wanted to park — at a garage at Center and 7th in Des Moines. From there, a shuttle would take us, for only $1, to Gate 10 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. So easy. We got off at the “correct” 14th Street exit from I-235 (I was driving, and Sharon was navigating), and made the correct left and right turns around the State Capitol when, lo and behold, a parking garage with a “fair parking” sign loomed ahead. Naturally, we turned into it and easily found a parking slot.
When we all emerged back into the sunlight, we looked for either Center or 7th — and found neither. That seemed funny, but not quite as funny as it would turn out to be later. So we started walking back toward the Capitol. It was several blocks and uphill all the way — and that, combined with warm (but not terribly hot) temperatures — started to fray some nerves. Not a lot of nerves, but a few.
We arrived at the Capitol and caught a DART (Des Moines Area RegionalTransit) bus that took us to the fairgrounds. Not directly, of course. No, this particular route seemed to be one made for those who had never seen Iowa’s biggest city. Our bus made its way into and out of neighborhoods that not even lifelong state residents likely had seen, or wanted to. At one point, it seemed as if we were much farther away from the fairgrounds than when we had started — and that was because we were.
Eventually, we arrived at Gate 10 and made our way inside. And there it was! After nearly four decades, the Iowa State Fair was laid out in front of us and to the sides. Where to begin? Well, with food, of course, since the fair is widely known for that — and for agriculture. We veered left out of Gate 10 and made our way to a building called, appropriately, the Food Court. Inside were numerous food vendors, and I quickly picked up a Nathan’s hotdog and a Pepsi (Coca Cola, unfortunately, was not available). Most everyone else in our little group made good with drinks only.
We didn’t spend much time inside the Food Court Building. But on the way out, we noted that numerous edible items were laid out on long tables. All had been judged as part of one contest or another — pretty standard stuff, at any fair. But there was one “display” involving, yes, the “ugliest cake.” And truly, the winner in that unfortunate “contest” was a chocolate concoction that looked just like — well, I won’t describe it. You can guess.
Once outside the Food Court, we glanced at the handy-dandy fair map we had been given back at Gate 10 and set out along the Grand Concourse. We had no agenda or plan — we simply wanted to soak up the “fair experience.” We walked past the great old-time grandstand where we had seen Hope and Skelton perform so long ago. It’s been expanded since then, but the outside still looks ancient and important. And it’s still the place where the Big Names come to play. This particular evening, Reba McEntire was the featured act. Sorry, Reba — we like you, but we’re old now, and didn’t want to extend our afternoon visit into the evening. Also, your tickets were a tad pricey for us retired folks.
We gave a similar cold shoulder to the midway’s carnival rides. Yes, there was a giant Ferris wheel, but I’d sworn off Ferris wheels of all sizes ever since Mom took me on one at the Fresno District Fair when I was about 4. That experience made me terrified of heights, and I still am. That’s why, if you really need to know, I never looked over the edge when we were on top of the old RCA Building or the Empire State Building in New York City, or at the old Sears Tower in Chicago.
We had walked only a few hundred yards from the first Food Court when we stopped at another food building. Remember, I was the only one who had purchased anything to eat back at that first eatery site. This building was even more jammed than the first one, but Beth decided to brave the crowds and buy something — I forget what — and sat down at the only spot she could find at the only available table. Sharon went to find something else to eat. Steve decided he needed — absolutely had to have — a pork chop on a stick. Now, I must interrupt this scintillating narrative to explain that the Iowa State Fair has more than 200 food stands. And what you must understand is that the fair is known far and wide for its “food on a stick.” In fact, more than 70 different offerings are “on a stick” — including such things as Oreos, Snickers, cheesecake, boiled eggs and even butter.
Pork chops on sticks are very important here, indeed, not the least because Iowa is a very big pork producing state. In fact, it’s the biggest. And Steve had eaten pork chops on sticks for many years, when he and his brother used to make pilgrimages to the fair. I, myself, had never had anything resembling a pork chop on a stick, and I was reluctant to start now. But I’m a team player — in fact, it’s widely known that in matters of team-playing, I’m the one to consult — so I went with Steve to find a stand selling pork chops on a stick. We walked. And walked. And walked. Mostly uphill, and all along the Grand Concourse. No luck.
We eventually found a place that sold pork sandwiches, but the guy there said, sorry, no pork chop on a stick. He pointed farther up the hill. So we set out again. After another few minutes, Steve was steaming, and it wasn’t just because of the warm afternoon. He abruptly turned around, heading back down hill, and I followed, playing the part of, yes, a fine team player. And then we saw it — a stand with a sign that read, “pork chop on a stick.” Steve moved quickly — faster than I’d seen him move in quite some time, actually — and soon enough, he was in line. I was behind him, but when I saw the price for this particular delicacy — $7 — I moved out of line.
And then that amazing thing I’ve written about so many times before — that thing called “Iowa Nice” — kicked in. The man in front of Steve turned and told him he wanted to buy Steve’s lunch. And he did — TWO pork chops on a stick. Amazing. So Steve had two FREE ones — but for some reason, that was not enough. So Steve purchased two more. Now he had four — and immediately gave one to me. Okay, I reluctantly tried my first — and I assumed last — pork chop on a stick. It was outstanding. Steve offered me another pork chop. Throwing caution to the wind, I accepted.
We started back to that food court where Beth and Sharon presumably were. I was eating my chop on a stick, and Steve was carrying the others in a bag. Imagine our surprise when we arrived back at that crowded court, found Beth — who was still sitting at the table where we had last seen her — and she asked where Sharon was. Turns out, Sharon had lost track of Beth and figured all of us had left, and she had wandered toward one of the buildings housing livestock. It took several cell phone calls, and explicit directions, for us to finally meet up again. And then it was time for the animals.
Now, animals are very big at the Iowa State Fair. It is, after all, an agricultural fair. And these animals come in all shapes and sizes, and they are often raised by earnest 4-H and FFA kids, who bring them to exhibit them and to take part in contests. And there are all kinds of contests for such things as the biggest boar, the biggest ram, the biggest bull, the biggest rabbit, and so on. And there are numerous big buildings on the fairgrounds’ 450-acres to showcase these animals. There is a giant sheep barn. No, it’s the building that’s giant — not the sheep. There’s a separate swine barn, a separate horse barn, and a separate cattle barn. And there’s also a separate livestock pavilion. Inside each of these enormous structures are living, breathing animals — small, medium and very big — and each of them is cared for, and cared for well, by its owner.
We walked through almost every animal structure, until the smell and the underfoot material one finds in such buildings began to grate on us more than somewhat. So naturally, we headed toward another giant building — this one known as the “Agriculture Building,” to differentiate it from the many other agriculture buildings nearby. And since it had been at least an hour since we had last eaten, we all naturally had to stop and have one of the giant ice-cream concoctions that one of the vendors inside this particular building was offering. (Steve had still been carrying his plastic pork-chop-on-a-stick bag and had tried to offer it, free, to fellow fairgoers. Surprisingly, no one in the giant crowd wanted to accept food in a bag being offered by an older man. How strange. So he finally tossed the bag away.)
And then it was time to see the Butter Cow. It was inside the Agriculture Building, and the line was long, indeed, to see the cow. The Butter Cow has been an Iowa State Fair staple since 1911, when the first giant one was carved out of butter. It’s a Very Big Deal around here, and if you’re going to this particular fair, you must see it, or your visit has been a failure. Of course, each year a new Butter Cow is carved. We saw this year’s version, and it looked, yes, just like a cow. Something new this year — near the Butter Cow — is a replica of a John Deere tractor carved out of butter. Trust me, it doesn’t get much better than all this.
By now — having endured all that food and all that warm weather — we were growing tired. Fortunately, we had planned our next move well: We walked to the nearby Mid-American Energy stage to watch KCCI-TV’s 5 p.m. newscast. For the past couple of decades, KCCI — which has had the most-watched (and quite deservedly so) newscasts in Central Iowa since it first went on the air 60 years ago — has done its 5 p.m. weekday shows at the fair during the fair’s run. It’s been a popular attraction — each afternoon, hundreds of people pack seats in front of the stage to watch anchors Steve Karlin and Cynthia Fodor introduce a variety of events and people having to do with the fair. (Anchor Stacey Horst remains desk-bound at KCCI’s downtown studio, doing a brief cut-in with “the rest” of the day’s news.) On this Friday, guests on stage included the outgoing Miss Iowa State Fair and her potential replacements, an acrobatic act involving two men and fiery torches, singers and more. During commercial breaks — which were run from the studio — Karlin and Fodor threw frisbees and shirts into the adoring crowd, and other KCCI-ers offered free drinks and food items.
After the broadcast ended at 5:30, Steve and I went to the stage to talk to Karlin, who had been one of Steve’s journalism students at Iowa State decades ago. Steve C. kindly introduced me to the other Steve, who proved to be Iowa-friendly and easy to talk with. Karlin has been at KCCI for 30 years — a lifetime in TV terms, but actually par for the course at this legendary CBS affiliate. In the station’s history, it’s had only four male evening-news anchors — Russ Van Dyke, Paul Rhoades, Kevin Cooney and now Karlin. Heck, the station’s only had THREE news directors in those six decades. It’s a solid station with great ratings, and all that helps keep people like Karlin on board.
It was getting late now, and we were weary. But we made one more stop — to Pioneer Hall — which featured lots of neat old-time exhibits, along with live musical performances and, yes, food courts. But we hustled out without buying anything — one’s stomach, even mine, can handle only so much — and made our way down to the Grand Concourse, looking for a shuttle that we had been promised would pick us up and deposit us back at Gate 10. Without going into too much detail (you’re welcome) — we saw no shuttle except one going the wrong way. When I approached the driver, he said he was not going to Gate 10 — ever — and knew of no one who was. So we started walking again. Downhill, yes, but remember, we had been there for seven hours, it was warm, and we were, well, exhausted. And perhaps cranky.
We eventually — not without grumpiness — made it back to Gate 10, and, yes, found the DART bus that would take us back to our parking ramp. Or so we thought. That bus actually took us no where near our ramp — driving, in fact, a couple of miles past it. Everyone else on the bus had departed except us, so I walked up to the driver and asked why we were not where our car was. I told him it was at Center and 7th — though I admitted we had not actually seen those two streets when we left the ramp hours ago.
Imagine our surprise when he told us we were AT Center and 7th. Trust me, it was NOT the garage we had THOUGHT was at Center and 7th. I had no idea how to explain where we had parked — but fortunately, and just in the nick of time, Sharon remembered that the ramp where we had left the car was across from a genealogy center. And — proving that this story does, indeed, have a happy ending — the bus driver knew exactly where THAT ramp was. He proceeded to take us there — veering off his usual route — so that we could find our car. Yes, it was that “Iowa Nice” thing again, and, yes, Steve and I insisted he take a tip from each of us before we got off that bus.
Beth tells us (apparently she has one of those “trackers”) that each of us walked about 5 miles — 10,000 steps — on Friday at the fair. Too bad none of us had a calorie tracker. I’m guessing we went way, way over our “daily minimum requirements” for that, as well. So I figure that if we go back to the fair next year, we need to cut down on steps, miles and calories. It will also be helpful if, next year, we park in a spot we can actually find again — after we get back from visiting butter cows and real cows and pork chops on sticks.