Stories From the Road

     I have some spare time today, and it occurred to me that maybe some of you are curious about what I've been up to. Many of you know I took the year off from teaching, and some of you know I'm doing shows with my dad. But exactly what does "doing shows with my dad" entail? Here's a peak into my life the last several weeks.

    My adventures on the road started August 15 when I flew out of Jackson, Mississippi, to join my dad in Minnesota. What exactly does Dad do? He works for the company All of Us Old Plantation Soups and Dips. You can find the company and order online here. I am so thankful the family who runs the business has excellent taste! Their products honestly are delicious. Other than ordering online, the only way you will find this product is at arts and crafts fairs, state fairs, etc., across the U.S. 

This is the top-selling soup and my personal favorite. 

When customers ask which soup is the best, the common

answer is, "Anything with a blue label!"

    Setting up for a show is a lot of work. There are tables to be unloaded and set up, cords to be run for sinks, microwave, toaster oven, and fridge, and product to be displayed. 

This is an old picture I found online, but the booth set-up looks something like this.

    The thing that makes All of Us stand out from the crowd is the samples. If you visit our booth, you can sample each one of the 20 dips and 13 cheeseballs. You will be offered soup samples, somewhere between three and six varieties depending how large the show is. If you come at the right time, you may also get a taste of Southern Pecan Pie muffins or Chocolate Cobbler. One of the newer products is Louisiana Yardbird (Chicken) Salad. All this sampling, of course, means more work: coming early to make soup, keeping the dips and cheeseballs iced down so they don't go bad, refilling jars of pretzels, wheat thins, and tortilla chips so our customers have something to sample with. 

    But everyone needs food. Most people enjoy food. And it's a lot of fun to watch someone try our products for the first time and see their eyes go wide in delight and watch them come back later with a friend to ensure they get to try the soup, too.

    Of course it is the people, always the people, that make it interesting.

    The first show Dad and I worked was the Steele County Fair. Folks there were quick to inform us this is the largest free county fair in America.

As you can see, there was a lot going on at Owatonna's Steele County Fair.

We experienced none of it, of course, because 

we are inside a building at our booth the entire time. 

    The Owatonna/Steele County Fair was interesting. Often at a fair we have busy periods where people are around the booth 3 deep followed by times of absolutely nothing. Not in Owatonna! Instead, we had a steady trickle of customers, just enough that you stayed busy, but few enough you kept wondering when the crowd was going to show up. 

    One of my favorite things there were the children and young teens that would come to our booth and sample. One group of girls came just about every day. The one girl, about 13 or so, bought her own dip mix, and another brought her mother to try things out.

    Besides the customers, we're also surrounded by other vendors. Many of these you form a relationship with by the last day, particularly at a longer show. Owatonna was five days long, mostly 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Keep in mind we try to get to the show two hours early in order to prepare for the day. 

    Across from us were three men, one Hispanic, one Israeli, and one of uncertain origins that were selling some sort of potion that could make you look fifteen years younger. I went back and forth between being amused at their methods and being upset that so many women (and their husbands) had so little self-respect as to allow themselves in essence to be called old and ugly.

    Beside us was the Department of Correction trying to get job applicants. Just down the aisle were some people selling heating and cooling pads. I don't know brands, so I'm not going to provide a link, but I know we love ours! 

These are awesome! There's a little button inside you

push to make them warm up automatically. You boil them

in order to return them to how they were to start with.

Put them in the freezer if you want them cold.

    One of the ladies working there was named Hailey and she stopped by our booth for samples every day. When we cleaned out left over soup at the end of the day, Hailey took some home for supper as well as the guys across the aisle. 

    Also just down the way was a man from South Africa selling wire cars. Anyone who's been in Africa will recognize the style. He and his wife were the nicest people. He told me he wanted to inspire children to play outside.

    

    Although you meet lots of nice people and see plenty of kind deeds, the fairs are not free of scandal either. There was a vendor that was packed up and escorted off the property by the police. Rumors had it they were disobeying rules by going out in the aisles and accosting potential customers. Supposedly they were also preying on vulnerable elderly women and were signing them up for unwanted, hard to understand memberships for their company at a rate of $2,500 a piece.

    And then there was the most interesting person I met at the fair. I met him when a rainstorm sent all the fairgoers and vendors outdoors rushing inside for shelter. We had a lengthy discussion.

    

Not him, but someone similar.

You probably know more than I do,

but I think he was a Rastafarian.

    He was born, he told me, on a plane somewhere between Jamaica and Australia. He was very highly educated, but he had chosen to renounce his education. He recognized me as a Mennonite and tried to pin me down on how I was "cheating" the rules of my religion. He told me he had chosen the name "Baba." I found this interesting, as Baba is the Shona word for father. I asked him about this, and he informed me he was able to speak 80 languages. 

    "Wow!" I said.

    "Yes," Baba said, "I can speak dog and chicken. I am trying to learn snake, but it is harder." 

    I can't remember the whole conversation, but we talked about being vegan. He told me I was a compassionate person and because I admitted I disliked killing animals, he was sure I had a subconscious knowledge it was wrong to do so. He explained at great lengths the reasons that killing off mosquitoes would damage the food chain. He told me if humans were nonexistent the animal world would heal itself in only a very few years. I did not think to ask him at the time how this would work, since if the tiny mosquito is so important, surely the larger human predator would be even more so?

    I did ask him if it was wrong to kill animals why animals killed each other. "Oh," he said, "animals are just lazy."

    Then I asked him if he believed animals had souls.

    Yes, Baba said he did. His explanation was confusing me, so I finally asked him what he believed a soul was. I can't say I completely understood that answer either, but it did explain why I was so confused by some of his views. The response was something down the line that a soul could also be called energy or quantum. Nothing truly existed, he said. 

    "So you believe...?" was how I started my next question.

    "No," he said, "You see, I think you cannot believe in anything."

    "Oh, but you have to believe in something!" I told him. "It's impossible to believe in nothing!"

    That seemed to pause him for a moment. Finally he said, "You are very wise for one so young. Where did you get so wise?"

    I told him any wisdom I had was not mine, but God's. That answer was hard for him to accept, so he asked me maybe twice more, and I just kept replying, "from God," until he gave up. 

    I must admit I did find the conversation taxing, and I tried my best to be busy the next couple times I saw him. He brought me some kettle corn later, telling me it was a good vegan snack. 

    Kettle corn is good, but one cannot live by kettle corn alone. I am quite happy to be an omnivore.

    At last the fair ended, and we loaded up to head back to the motel. It was nearly 11:00 p.m. by the time we left the fairgrounds.

Our magnificent ride looks like this, more or less. The seats

can hardly be said to be comfortable. 

    Our next stop was in Minneapolis at the Minnesota State Fair. This is a huge deal. It is the largest fair in the U.S. by attendance, and second only to Texas by land area. We joined another crew there to help out for several days. I was glad we didn't have to stay the entire time! It's a twelve-day event, and we were there plenty long for me after the first five or so days.

    May I inform you that although the people I met were not unpleasant, they were messy eaters. And they ate a lot. I was constantly refilling pretzel containers. I started keeping track, and we were going through sixteen bags of pretzels a day. And I'm not sure how they did it, but the ice cups we put our dips and cheeseballs in were so messy, we started covering them all with plastic bags to save on clean up time. My main job was running the register, and I was positioned across from a vendor named Larry. Larry is a bit of a legend in the fair industry, and a staple at the Minnesota state fair.

Larry has been at the fair for 

approximately 36 years.

    You would not believe how many people came by and said, "Oh! It's Larry! I've watched him since I was a kid, and he was just as old then as he is now!" They would ask to take pictures with him and watch his spiel with fascination, the same as they have for the last number of years. 

    Larry was quite tickled to hear that someone had taken a photo of him and entered it in the fair. "You can see me twice," he'd tell people, "once here, and once on the wall in the fine arts building!"

    Larry sells peelers, and his sales patter is so good that you'll probably end up buying one even if you don't want to. You can see it for yourself by following this link to Larry's Peeler. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find a video of his sales pitch.

    One of the things I dislike about living on the road is doing laundry either at hotels or laundromats. On the evening before we were supposed to leave Minneapolis, we went down to the laundry room in the motel where we were staying. 

    Would you believe it? They were all busy or out of order. Except one. And that one was just being loaded by a vendor just down the aisle from us at the fair. In fact, we've talked to him some, and he's a really nice guy. No laundry for us that night. But our fellow vendor was having a problem.

    "Hey," he said, "would you mind using your card in this machine? I'm having trouble with mine. I'll pay you back."

    So Dad paid for his laundry. 

    "Are those your clothes?" the vendor asked, motioning to the washers in action. 

    "No," Dad said, "we were just coming to do ours."

    "And you paid for mine? Man, if that was me I would've told you to get your stuff out and let me do my laundry if I was paying anyhow. Guess God was looking out for me tonight!"

    We shrugged and laughed and went back to our room. The next morning the same vendor approached us as we ate the continental breakfast. "Would you believe it?" he said, "My clothes are stuck in that washer! It quit partway through and it's full of water and I can't get anything out. Looks like God was watching out for you, not me!"

    Apparently the event was impressive to him, because I heard him telling other people the same story throughout the day. "And I don't mess with God," he told one man.

    Honestly, what could we say? I think God was watching out for us. We were leaving that day and had it been our clothes stuck in the washer, we would have certainly been in trouble.

    Our next stop was South Dakota. We stayed with one of Dad's cousins there. It was special for me to get to meet them, as I don't really know any of my dad's extended family. The South Dakota State Fair is an entirely different vibe from the Minnesota State Fair. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The building across the street from us housed chickens, goats,

a couple of cows that calved during the fair, and two sows that farrowed.

    Rural South Dakota, I decided, has the nicest people. They are respectful, hard workers, and not in the least entitled. There were a lot of 4H shirts, cowboy hats, and big belt buckles. Every morning when we arrived we drove past calves getting washed and ready to show. Several of the streets between the buildings were dirt, and there were golf carts everywhere, ready to give you a ride if you needed it. The atmosphere was more laid back and openly friendly. I would definitely visit South Dakota again!

   In our building was a place that sold milk, shakes, and ice cream cones. They had a steady stream of visitors, and by Saturday had already sold the same amount of ice cream they had sold the entire year before. Across from us was a lady selling infused honey.

This tasted like you could put it on ham and grill it.

There were other flavors that would work well in hot tea or coffee.

    She was representing the family run business, Little Shire Farm, which you can find here. She and I had some fun trading products. I'd never experienced infused honey before, and I loved it. The cinnamon and salted varieties were great as well!

    We found out while we were here that there had been a shooting at the Minnesota State Fair. While I was glad we were no longer there, my heart is heavy for those affected.

    I also met another gentleman at this fair. Unlike Baba, he did not give me his name, and unlike Baba, he did not leave me feeling confused.

    "I was born in South Dakota, and I'll die in South Dakota," he told me, "but after I die, I'm going somewhere even better. You know where that is?"

    "Where?" I asked.

    "Heaven," he told me. "I'm going to Heaven. Are you going to Heaven?"

    "Yes, sir," I told him.

    "How do you know?" he asked.

    "Because I believe Jesus died for my sins and He's forgiven me," I answered. I didn't really know what to say, but I think the Spirit must have given me those words.

    "That's a good answer," the man told me. "So many people I ask say they don't know or they hope so or that they're trying to be good enough. I met one lady and I asked her if she was going to Heaven. She told me right away, 'Oh, yes!' and I asked her how she knew, and she said, 'Well, I try to be good and I'm a Catholic,'" he shook his head. "Nope, that isn't going to work."

    I had to abandon our conversation because a customer was needing attendance, but I feel that gentleman had a better grasp on how to get to Heaven than many people do. And I was impressed he was willing to strike up spiritual conversation with random strangers.

    Now here we are in a small town near Little Falls, Minnesota, waiting for the next fair to start.

    This fair is a little different than the others. For one thing, it's all outside. For another, it is strictly arts and crafts, so not so many larger companies will be represented like at some of the other fairs where there were booths for Usborne, Pampered Chef, and Norwex. (I never saw Lemongrass though, lol.)

    This is only a two day fair, and it will be time to head home. I am grateful. 

    The next question will be how we survive the trip home as our air conditioner has quit. But I'm sure we will. We've survived many other things, after all.

    Thanks for coming along on our road trip! I apologize if this got too long. Next time you visit an arts and crafts fair, maybe you'll remember this, and think about everything that goes on behind the scenes. And although the schedule can be grueling, we also have experiences and chances to talk to people we'd never meet otherwise. So long for now!