Today marks the beginning of our mental autumn. The majority of children started school today. The rhythm of the school year will soon lull us into a celebration of the weekend that gets lost in the summer heat. Friday nights become special again, something people look forward to all week. The days that seemed to melt into one another in summer find form once fall arrives. Even if their are no children in your house, even if there never has been, we all have that patchwork of the school year etched in us. We know how it feels.

In Minnesota, the beginning of the school year is preceded by the State Fair, a celebration I have long loved. Others feel differently, I know, but for me, it is an experience that is multi-layered, filled with traditions and also surprises every year, that reminds us of our connections to the land and to one another. As I often say,”I’d go every day if I could.”

Recently I read the following words from a speech by Abraham Lincoln delivered at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1859: “Agricultural Fairs are becoming an institution of the country; they are useful in more ways than one; they bring us together, and thereby make us better acquainted, and better friends than we otherwise would be….The man of the highest moral cultivation, in spite of all which abstract principle can do, likes him who he does know, much better than him whom he does not know. To correct the evils, great and small which springs from want of sympathy, and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations, or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. To this end our Agricultural Fairs contribute in no small degree. They make more pleasant, and more strong, and more durable, the bond of social and political union among us.”

Of course spending time at the Minnesota State Fair over the last several days caused me to dig out this quote by one of our most beloved presidents. In no way could I ever have said what he did so eloquently but his intention is something I have felt. I spend most of my days, and my weekends, with people just like me. We hold the same values. We think about many of the same things, worry about similar issues, have hopes and dreams that might lead toward the same goal. We have a similar way of being in the world.

But when I go to the Fair I am reminded about all the things in the world about which I know very little. Simple things. Things that, for others, are the stuff of their every day. Take for instance chickens. Looking at the stunning array of poultry, I marveled at their variety. Who knew there were so many? Realizing I did not know what a pullet was, I approached a woman in the poultry barn. Without missing a beat, she was happy to tell me and I went on my merry way.

The same thing happened in the sheep barn. Looking into the pen of a group of sweet, little puffs of black wool, I couldn’t tell if they were babies or just exceptionally small sheep. Cleaning out the stall nearby, a young man, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, allowed me to ask my question. Pointing to another equally wooly black animal nearby, he simply said “When they’re grown they won’t be bigger than that.” His youth taught this older hen something.
At the Fair there are musicians I would not regularly listen to and food I would never think of making.(There are also some I would not think of eating!) But each time I am there I am confronted once again with a swath of humanity I might not encounter in the course of my daily walk. I have the opportunity to rub elbows with both humans and animals that teach and inspire. I am also reminded that we are still, though we often forget, basically an agrarian people. We plant. We reap. We eat. Some of us understand how it works while the rest of us just get carried along for the ride. At the Fair, the classroom has an open door.

Lincoln noticed these important lessons in State Fair experiences. And while I couldn’t have said it as beautifully as he did, I certainly agree.