1946: The no-fair trip I'll never forget

"The Beer Garden is waiting," (Variety, Aug. 23) about virtual beer tastings, roused recollections of my 1946 trip to the Minnesota State Fair.

I was 17. I had graduated eighth grade from an Olmsted County one-room school at 12. High school was not an option; I worked on the farm and had never been so far as St. Paul.

When my Uncle Slug — his given name was Henry, but I knew him as Uncle Slug — invited me to go to the State Fair with him, his neighbor, Hugh Liebenow, and his brother-in-law, George Meyer, my horizon exploded. We all lived within 4 miles of Potsdam, Minn., northeast of Rochester, population 37.

The 1945 State Fair had been canceled due to it being wartime, so the 1946 fair was much anticipated. During the war, gasoline and tires had been rationed and the speed limit was 35 mph. The postwar limit was raised.

Uncle Slug had traded his 1936 Chevy Master for a 1941 Buick Special Sedanette. I pictured us literally flying once we got onto paved Hwy. 52.

The day was overcast; we got a late start after morning chores. Sure enough, once on Hwy. 52 we tore along at 55 mph. Cannon Falls was considered the halfway point. There, about 9 a.m., we stopped for breakfast. When we went to leave, the Buick would not back up. We pushed it away from the curb. The forward gears functioned, so northward we sped to St. Paul.

University Avenue was a wonderland of auto dealerships, the big Montgomery Ward mail order house and so many other sights. We missed the Snelling Avenue fairgrounds turn and, on Washington Avenue, saw Minneapolis ahead. George had studied mechanics at Dunwoody Institute, so drawing from his Dunwoody days, he advised continuing to Hennepin Avenue where he would show us the Alvin (burlesque) Theater.

News of the 1946 fair's cancellation due to polio had not reached Potsdam.

The Midway had a few idle rides and attractions whose operators apparently hadn't known of the cancellation, either. That was about it — except for the Beer Garden, which was open and nearly empty.

It was then past noon and we were hungry. George's sister, Millie, had packed a picnic basket with fried chicken, potato salad and an apple pie, and sent a thermos of coffee. In the 1940s one did not go to State Fair to buy food.

Leaving the thermos behind in the Buick, we carried the basket to a far table in the Beer Garden and washed down our lunch with a brew.

Refreshed, Uncle Slug said we would now tour the grounds, to see what I would have experienced at a real State Fair. On Machinery Hill I saw where John Deere, Case, International Harvester and other tractors and implements would have been displayed, and learned techniques for arguing with factory reps. Farther on, my uncle described absent displays in the Industrial Arts and 4-H buildings.

I learned that the Dairy Building usually was where to buy milkshakes. Princess Kay of the Milky Way had yet to be invented. Descriptions of horse and cattle shows in the closed 5,000-seat Hippodrome were total mind stretchers; I'd seen nothing larger than Rochester's Mayo Civic Auditorium.

My fair tour ended with vivid descriptions of thrills I'd have had at a functioning Midway, and wonders normally seen at Grandstand exhibits, shows and racetrack.

Following a farewell stein and pretzels at the Beer Garden, we left. After but two or three wrong turns we eventually passed the South St. Paul Stockyards, connected with Hwy. 52 and headed home.

Starting in the late 1950s I attended the State Fair regularly for many years, and sporadically thereafter. Through all those years the fair's wonders were never so vivid for me as Uncle Slug's descriptions.