Jody and I were not loyal fair goers until we had the children. Crystel’s birthday falls on September 4 and the State Fair soon became an activity that we incorporated into her birthday week. You might expect that a middle-aged person and an 11-year-old girl see the State
Fair differently. Because it is part of her birthday celebration, Crystel chooses what we see and the order in which we see it.
7-years old with his turkey leg.
Over the years not much has changed. Aunt Amie continues to accompany us as she has done every year.
Since we often enter the fair from the west side the children’s barn is our first stop. Antonio and I skip it, using this time to get our turkey legs – regardless of the hour.
This year, Crystel stopped in the barn only long enough to snap a picture of a cow for Mama Beth, who grew up on a farm with 50 cows. The kids don’t understand the distinction between growing up on a farm and being born in a barn, so
they usually tell people the latter about their mother. . . and Jody doesn’t
correct them.
Butterfly garden at age 7
Even though Aunt Amie is a vegetarian she doesn’t scrunch up her nose at us devouring our humongous turkey legs.
Taking a right, we walk immediately to the Haunted House. I sometimes think the haunted house is the only reason we come to the fair.
Crystel has gotten big enough that she can no longer ride on Aunt Amie’s back digging her head into her shoulder blades so she can’t see what she doesn’t want to see. Now she’s progressed to walking next to Aunt Amie, though I can’t tell you what exactly happens inside the haunted house. I am the keeper of bags, purses, and extra clothes who sits outside contentedly people-watching. What happens inside the haunted house stays inside the haunted house.
After ugly comes pretty. The butterfly garden is a must after the haunted house. Crystel’s yearly goal is to see how many butterflies’ she can get on her person.
Butterfly garden at 9-years-old. The hat is to draw more butterflies.
This is cotton candy time for me and Antonio.
The Giant Slide is the first time that Aunt Amie and Jody get a breather. I grab a gunny sack and follow the children.
If our timing is right, there might be a dog show to see after the Giant Slide.
Nothing is better than your own bag of cotton candy.
By now, we have eaten snow cones, corn dogs, deep fried cheese curds, deep fried battered vegetables, sweet corn, and Sweet Martha’s cookies. Time for the Midway and a couple of rides.
We have one last item to do before leaving the fair. That is to get Aunt Amie wet on the log chute. It’s not the State Fair if she goes home dry.
As you see we have not visited one educational building, saw not one piece of fine art, or watched any fair animals being judged. Maybe next year.
What to do. What to do. What to do. Fish and swim. Fish and swim. Fish and swim. Geocache. Hike. Have pizza in Grand Marias. Skip stones, bike, play games with cousins, canoe, learn to portage in the Boundary Waters, scare Jack. After making a safety circle use your Scout knife, start fires with or without matches, hunt for shooting stars and satellites in the night sky.
The adventurous group. Lightweights not allowed.
Our family recently went on our most rustic trip ever. To some of you, it will be pansy-like because we didn’t actually hike into the Boundary Waters but stayed outside of it at Crescent Lake Campground. Crescent Lake Campground is a Superior National Campground, 13 miles from Sawbill Canoe Outfitters.
My nephew and niece, Ralph and Tina Walker and her family would call us lightweights. They were surprised that this was our most rustic experience because they have been camping with their children, eight and six years old, since they could fit into a fanny pack.
Nephew Steve giving me fishing advice.
We were fortunate to have Ralph with us (or unfortunate) because Jody and I would have chosen a campground with electricity and showers. Ralph is a minimalist guru. All he needs is swim shorts, string and a hook.
It was at the last moment, when he told us, “Oh by the way, there is no electricity and no water.” Immediately, I went into a panic. I had envisioned sitting in our tent trailer, plugged into my computer, safe from the elements (mosquitoes), deeply engrossed in revising my manuscript while others were off exploring.
There would be no plugging in anything. Not the crock pot, not the griddle, not the electric fry pan, and certainly there would be no fresh coffee brewing in the morning.
Andy taking off fish for Crystel and Antonio
Electrical appliances are how Jody and I roll. Or, how Jody rolls. Because, as I was found out on this trip, Jody does all the cooking. My niece and nephews were a bit incredulous about this. “You let her do everything?” They asked me this as she was serving us the first round of bacon, eggs, pancakes, and coffee (though she doesn’t drink coffee). I flinched, stumbled around in explanation, finally landing on, “Didn’t I choose well when I married her?”
As custom has it, fish thrown back get kissed.
The Walkers and di Grazia’s own the tent trailer together. It’s fun when owning joint property with your relatives works out. Prior to leaving for the Boundary Waters, we decided (Beth decided) that it was best that the children, Antonio and Crystel, Jack and Andy, sleep in the tent trailer and the adults in tents. This may seem a bit lopsided. Shouldn’t the kids get the tents and the adults the castle?
Not if one of your children is Antonio. I was most concerned about us surviving him on this trip.
Superior Hiking Trail
By the time we left for our no electricity and no running water camping trip, I was resolved to have a good time, regardless. The di Grazia’s would go off into the unknown and be of good cheer. Even Antonio.
My first and best purchase for our trip was fishing poles for Antonio and Crystel and a fishing license for me. I would need the license for taking fish off and putting nightcrawlers on when Andy the six year old wasn’t doing it for his cousins. Andy, as he declared several times, is an expert at fishing. By the end of our five-day trip, Crystel mustered the courage to take 3 small fish off her line. Antonio was content with the six year old doing everything for him.
swimming across the lake
Bears were a minor concern. We did all the right things and stored our food before going into our tents at night. Still, I had visions of Smokey crawling into my sleeping bag with me and woke Jody one night to tell her that. Once she was awake and watchful, I could sleep.
It can be a nice or not so nice experience when camping in a remote area with friends or relatives that you don’t spend much time with. I didn’t know Steve’s son Xavier prior to our camping trip. I found the thirteen-year old to be very pleasant.
Antonio and Crystel surviving the roughing it part.
Xavier became big brother, guardian, and protector to the 11, 10, 8, and 6 year old. He accompanied them swimming across the lake and when the adults escaped to Sawbill (Jody and I showered there), he stayed back. After swimming he gathered them in the tent trailer for card playing.
Although Ralph had a host of activities for us and planned our days and evenings, our group didn’t always stick together. The Walker’s and the Smith’s went on many more geocaches, hikes, and canoe trips than we did. That worked out. It is important to do what works for you.
On the day of the portage into the Boundary Waters, Antonio decided to stay back (he wouldn’t get out of bed). There
Xavier
could have been many reasons for this, one being the last time he was in a canoe with me he didn’t fare well. After portaging, swimming, fishing, picnicking, and canoeing with our group, we split off. Jody and I wanted to return to Antonio and the adventurous group continued on.
Canoeing back to our portage, a moose and her baby were swimming across the lake. We were so close to them that as we sat in our canoe we could hear their breath blowing out their nostrils as they huffed their way across. It was simply amazing. Jody, Crystel, and I stayed still in our canoe until they climbed out of the water and walked into the woods.
No electricity, no water. There was so much to do.
This doesn’t count the many times that I submitted to the Loft Mentor Series and wasn’t a finalist.
Because I had been in the finalist circle I knew that I had ‘something’ readers liked. And, that gave me the gumption to keep submitting. I also believed in the Loft Mentor Series and the possibilities that came with winning. (The Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose offers twelve emerging Minnesota writers the opportunity to work intensively with six nationally acclaimed writers of prose and poetry.)
I graduated from Hamline University with an MFA in 2003, the same year that Antonio and Crystel came home. To have the infants at my graduation was important to me. I was birthing an MFA and a created family.
In 2003, I was a Loft Mentor Series finalist in poetry and nonfiction. Ten years later, I’ve become a winner.
Nephew Dan and I cutting our joint Graduation cake
In those ten years I honed my submission over and over finally landing on “The Trip.” The trip is an essay that speaks of my relationship with Jody, our trip to Guatemala to see Crystel and to bring Antonio home, and our challenges as a same-sex couple who were creating a family. This past year for the mentor series, I added a 4-page chapter, “Fire,” that I revised after taking a workshop with Mary Carroll Moore. The story illustrated family dynamics after I burned my back and required hospitalization when I was fifteen-years-old. In essence, I had scourge and rebirth side by side.
You can have the finest essay and never be a winner in the Loft Mentor Series because you have to be chosen by two mentors, who are stating by choosing you that they want to work with your material.
Jerald Walker
Each year that I submitted, I’d research who the mentors were and I’d always wonder if I would be chosen. Jerald Walker and Mark Anthony Rolo are the non-fiction mentors for 2013. Part way through reading Jerald Walker’s memoir, I thought maybe, just maybe he might pick me. Something resonated with me in his words and though our histories are different, there are also similarities in the odds that we faced in climbing out of our circumstances and that our past didn’t determine our life. Mark Anthony Rolo’s first
Mark Anthony Rolo
chapter describes his mother entering a burning house to save her children (who were not in the house), and how she was badly burned in the process. Fierce love and deprivation was being described in the same sentence. Whoa, I thought. Maybe, just maybe.
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