Those Summer Nights...

Got a haircut the other day – quite a few of them, actually – and gazed across the street at the Olmsted County Fairgrounds, home of many childhood memories.
Rochester was small enough back then that you could probably hear the Fairgounds-based stock car- racing racket across town. We certainly could. But it was just far enough way to provide kind of a pleasant sound for a kid to fall asleep to on sweet summer nights.
The Olmsted County Fair was and still is a man-made odyssey of whirling bright lights, strange people (to us) and animal smells. We cruised the Midway, ate cotton candy, and checked out the 4-H animal exhibits.
Little brother Bob and I went up on the huge Ferris wheel one night, way, way, WAY o the ground - you could clearly see Chicago – and Dad stood at the bottom, smiling and yakking forever with a guy, no doubt well aware that I fear heights like nothing else, except centipedes and millipedes, and every other “pede.”

We came back another year, just Bob and I, and stood in line to enter a trailer and see a guy called “The Snake- Eating Savage,” something like that.
He was a savage-looking guy. All sweaty, and painted red. I could’ve been wrong, but even a little 12 or 13-year-old could tell the guy was gnawing on a huge rubber snake.
He was enthusiastic about it, to the point of ridiculousness. Kids today might think he was lame-o, but I kind of appreciated the acting. Gotta smile at the long-ago memory.
Another time we snuck in under the big grandstand- me, Bob, and my bestest buddy Dave - to watch the stock car races.

I think the Powers That Be probably knew we were under there and hadn’t paid to get in, but if they did they looked the other way.
A stock car driver named Mert Williams lived in our southeast Rochester neighborhood - a source of pride, since he was one of the best around.
We’d take the shortcut past his house and watch ol’ Mert monkeying with his car, revving the engine.
That’s him! Mert Williams!
I would lie in bed at night and fall asleep listening to the stock car races, the Fair sounds, cars and motorcycles racing out on the Beltline, and my mom and dad and their friends – all gone now- playing cards and laughing out in the kitchen.
How lucky I was to be so safe and loved.