Al Batt’s columns appear in the Tribune every Sunday and Wednesday.I went to the Waseca County Fair.

I go every year because I enjoy county fairs.

I walk the fairgrounds until I’m too far into my shoes. The fair takes my mind off my problems. It helps me forget that I’d been troubled lately by concerns of insufficient closet space. Things like that eat away at a man.

On the farm, I often heard, “No two years are the same.”

That was in reference to crops, but it applies to fairs as well. As a boy, agriculture was the centerpiece of a county fair. There was always a guy there like the one who taught horses how to hold their breaths so cowboys wouldn’t become bowlegged. The fair remains homage to the farm and the farming lifestyle, but I don’t think most people go there to see animals with ag careers. It seems to this observer that food is the thing that brings the most people. We feed at the trough. The only thing we want is more. The engine of commerce at the fair runs on grease.

I have my food choices planned out before I set foot on the fairgrounds. It’s the same every year. A blueberry malt from the Waseca County American Dairy Association stand, onion rings from the Waseca Fire Department and popcorn from the Waseca County Historical Society. These three foods have something in common other than having “Waseca” in the name of the provider. They are yummy.

At the Freeborn County Fair, I need a malt and a corn dog or a pronto pup. There are so many food vendors at the Steele County Fair, it takes me longer to decide what to eat than it does to eat. It nearly becomes shopping, which is something I stumble at. At the Faribault County Fair, I try to eat something new each year. I could go on.

We eat so much while on a fair food bender that we can barely utter a “Ta-da” when finished.

One of the best things about the food, other than ingesting it, is to hear what people say about it.

“You’re going to eat nothing but cotton candy? Is that the kind of life you want?”

And “Fresh fruit? This fair is unfair.”

There was a fly in the ointment this year at the Waseca County Fair. A fly in the ointment might be better than stable flies, those irritating ankle biters. I digress.

There was no popcorn. Why not? Because there was no popcorn machine. Why was there no popcorn machine? Because the grandstand at Tink Larson Field had burned. Tink Larson is a friend and was a long-time teammate of this ink-stained scribe. Arson was suspected at the baseball park.

What has this got to do with the popcorn machine? It was in the grandstand.

Naturalist John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

As a boy, I was mesmerized by the games of chance that proliferated at fairs. I didn’t play them. It was more fun to watch the players. I play games of chance today just by driving to a fair and trying to find a parking place. A friend lives near a fairgrounds. He pays $5 to park in his own driveway.

I remember the year that the winner of the demolition derby was disqualified because he’d made his imperial indestructible by coating it in fruitcake batter. Another year, I stood in a line at a county fair while singing, “I am a lineman for the county.” Glen Campbell would have been proud. In those days there were no petting zoos. We had biting zoos. We learned that no one really wins a pie-eating contest.

Fairs change. The house of mirrors has become the house of selfies. We wait in long lines to see the amazing man with no tattoos. We visit a deep-fried antacid stand.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Parents still use the middle names of rambunctious children. There are still foods to die of. Deep-fried butter and chocolate-covered bacon. A jam session is held during the preserved food judging. Bands remain convinced that their fans are deaf. Hypnotists embarrass subjects who find wearing an “I have to poop” T-shirt isn’t embarrassing enough. Pigs race without wearing safety helmets.

Fairs are fun. They provide a public service, a rare type of fun called being offline.

I’ve got to go. The fair’s ketchup packet stomping competition is about to start.